7. (p. 176)
A Problem of Quotas
The War Department encountered overwhelming problems when it tried to put the Gillem Board's recommendations into practice, and in the end only parts of the new policy for the use of black manpower were ever carried out. The policy foundered for a variety of reasons: some implicit in the nature of the policy itself, others the result of manpower exigencies, and still others because of prejudices lingering in the staff, the Army, and the nation at large.
Even before the Army postwar racial policy was published in War Department Circular 124 on 27 April 1946 it met formidable opposition in the staff. Although Secretary Patterson had approved the new course of action, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Personnel, General Paul, sent a copy of what he called the "proposed" policy to the Army Air Forces for further comment.[7-1] The response of the air commander, General Carl Spaatz, revealed that he too considered the policy still open for discussion. He suggested that the Army abandon the quota in favor of admitting men on the basis of intelligence and professional ability and forbid enlistment to anyone scoring below eighty in the entry tests. He wanted the composite organizations of black and white units recommended by the board held to a minimum, and none smaller than an air group--a regimental-size unit. Black combat units should have only black service units in support. In fact, Spaatz believed that most black units should be service units, and he wanted to see Negroes employed in overhead assignments only where and when their specialties were needed. He did not want jobs created especially for them.[7-2]
[Footnote 7-1: DF, ACofS, G-1, to CG, AAF, 15 Mar 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-2: Memo, CG, AAF, for ACofS, G-1, 3 Apr 46, sub: Utilization of Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
These were not the only portents of difficulty for the new policy. Before its publication General Paul had announced that he would not establish a staff group on racial affairs as called for by the Gillem Board. Citing manpower shortages and the small volume of work he envisaged, Paul planned instead to divide such duties between his Welfare Branch and Military Personnel Services Group.[7-3] The concept of a central authority for the direction of racial policy was further weakened in April when Paul invited the Assistant Chief of Staff for Organization and Training, General Edwards, one of whose primary tasks was to decide the size and number of military units, to share responsibility for carrying out the recommendations of the Gillem Board.[7-4]
[Footnote 7-3: DF, ACofS, G-1, to ASW, 26 Mar 46, sub: Implementation of WD Cir 124, WDGAP 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-4: Idem to ACofS, G-3, 29 Apr 46, sub: Implementation of WD Cir 124, WDGAP 291.2.]
Assistant Secretary Petersen was perturbed at the mounting (p. 177) evidence of opposition. Specifically, he believed Spaatz's comments indicated a lack of accord with Army policy, and he wanted the Army Air Forces told that "these basic matters are no longer open for discussion." He also wanted to establish a troop basis that would lead, without the imposition of arbitrary percentages, to the assignment of a "fair proportion" of black troops to all major commands and their use in all kinds of duties in all the arms and services. Petersen considered the composite unit one of the most important features of the new policy, and he wanted "at least a few" such units organized soon. He mentioned the assignment of a black parachute battalion to the 82d Airborne Division as a good place to begin.
Petersen had other concerns. He was distressed at the dearth of black specialists in overhead detachments, and he wondered why War Department Circular 105, which provided for the assignment of men to critically needed specialties, explicitly excluded Negroes.[7-5] He wanted the circular revised. Above all, Petersen feared the new policy might falter from a lack of aggressive leadership. He estimated that at first it would require at least the full attention of several officers under the leadership of an "aggressive officer who knows the Army and has its confidence and will take an active interest in vigorous enforcement of the program."[7-6] By implication Petersen was asking General Paul to take the lead.
[Footnote 7-5: WD Cir 105, 10 Apr 46.]
[Footnote 7-6: Memo, ASW for ACofS, G-1, 27 Apr 46, ASW 291.2.]
Within a week of Petersen's comments on leadership, Paul had revised Circular 105, making its provisions applicable to all enlisted men, regardless of race or physical profile.[7-7] A few days later, he was assuring Petersen that General Spaatz's comments were "inconsistent with the approved recommendations" and were being disregarded.[7-8] Paul also repeated the principal points of the new policy for the major commanders, especially those dealing with composite units and overhead assignments for black specialists. He stressed that, whenever possible, Negroes should be assigned to places where local community attitudes were most favorable and no undue burden would be imposed on local civilian facilities.[7-9]
[Footnote 7-7: G-1 Summary Sheet for CofS, 3 May 46, sub: Changes to WD Cir 105, 1946, WDGAP 291.2. Revision appeared as WD Circular 142, 17 May 46.]
[Footnote 7-8: DF, ACofS, G-1, to ASW, 13 May 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-9: Ltr, TAG to CG's, AGF, AAF, and ASF, 6 May 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army, AGAM-PM 291.2 (30 Apr 46); idem to CG's, 10 Jun 46, same sub, same file (4 Jun 46).]
General Paul believed the principal impediment to practical application of the new policy was not so much the opposition of field commanders as the fact that many black units continued to perform poorly. He agreed with Marcus Ray, Civilian Aide to the Secretary of War, who had predicted as early as January 1946 that the success of the Gillem Board's recommendations would depend on how many Negroes of higher than average ability the armed forces could attract and retain. Ray reasoned that among the Negroes enlisting in the Regular Army--14 percent of the 1945 total--were large numbers of noncommissioned (p. 178) officers in the three highest grades whose abilities were limited. They were able to maintain their ratings, usually in service units, because their duties required knowledge of neither administration nor weapons. Truckmasters, foremen, riggers, and the like, they rushed to reenlist in order to freeze themselves in grade. Since many of these men were in the two lowest test categories, they could not supply the leaders needed for black units. Ray wanted to replace these men with better educated enlistees who could be used on the broadened professional base recommended by the Gillem Board. To that end he wanted the Army to test all enlisted men, discharge those below minimum standards, and launch a recruiting campaign to attract better qualified men, both black and white.[7-10] For his part, Paul also deplored the enlistment of men who were, in his words, "mentally incapable of development into the specialists, technicians, and instructors that we must have in the post-war Regular Army."[7-11]
[Footnote 7-10: Memo, Marcus H. Ray for ASW, 22 Jan 46, ASW 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-11: Memo, ACofS, G-1, for CofS, 25 Jan 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
Here, even before the new racial policy was published, the Army staff ran head on into the realities of postwar manpower needs. In a rapid demobilization, the Army was critically short of troops, particularly for overseas replacements, and it could maintain troop strength only by accepting all the men it could get. Until Paul had more definite information on the future operations of Selective Service and the rate of voluntary Regular Army enlistments, he would have to postpone action to curtail the admission of low-scoring men. So pressing were the Army's needs that Paul could do nothing to guarantee that black strength would not greatly exceed the 10 percent figure suggested by the Gillem Board. He anticipated that by 1 July 1946 the regular and active reserve components of the Army would together be approximately 15 percent black, a percentage impossible to avoid if the Army was to retain 1.8 million men. Since all planning had been based on a 10 percent black strength, plans would have to be revised to make use of the excess. In February 1946 the Chief of Staff approved General Paul's program: Negroes would continue to be drafted at the 10 percent ratio; at the same time their enlistment in the Regular Army would continue without restriction on numbers. Negroes would be limited to 15 percent of the overseas commands, and the continental commands (p. 179) would absorb all the rest.[7-12]
[Footnote 7-12: DF, ACofS, G-1, 23 Jan 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGAP 291.2 (23 Jan 46); Ltr, TAG to CG's, Major Forces, and Overseas Cmdrs, 4 Feb 46, same sub, AG 291.2 (31 Jan 46) OB-S-A-M.]
Paul's program for absorbing Negroes faced rough going, for the already complex manpower situation was further complicated by limitations on the use of Negroes in certain overseas theaters and the demands of the War Department's major commands. The Army was prohibited by an agreement with the State Department from sending Negroes to the Panama Canal Zone; it also respected an unwritten agreement that barred black servicemen from Iceland, the Azores, and China.[7-13] Since the War Department was unable to use Negroes everywhere, the areas where they could be used had to take more. The increase in black troops provoked considerable discussion in the large Pacific and European commands because it entailed separate housing, transportation, and care for dependents--all the usual expensive trappings of segregation. Theater commanders also faced additional problems in public relations and management. As one War Department staff officer claimed, black units required more than normal administration, stricter policing, and closer supervision. This in turn demanded additional noncommissioned officers, and "more Negro bodies must be maintained to produce equivalent results."[7-14]
[Footnote 7-13: G-1 Memo for Rcd, Col Coyne, Operations Gp, 19 Feb 47, WDGAP 291.2; prohibitions for certain areas are discussed in detail in Chapter 15.]
[Footnote 7-14: Memo, Actg Chief, Pac Theater Sec, OPD, for Maj Gen H. A. Craig, Dep ACofS, OPD, 12 Feb 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower, WDGOT 291.2.]
Both commands protested the War Department decision. Representatives from the European theater arrived in Washington in mid-February 1946 to propose a black strength of 8.21 rather than the prescribed 15 percent. Seeking to determine where black soldiers could be used "with the least harmful effect on theater operations," they discovered in conferences with representatives of the War Department staff only the places Negroes were not to be used: in infantry units, in the constabulary, which acted as a border patrol and occupation police, in highly technical services, or as supervisors of white civilian laborers.[7-15]
[Footnote 7-15: Memo, Chief, Eur Sec, OPD, for Maj Gen Howard A. Craig, Dep ACofS, OPD, 15 Feb 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGOT 291.2.]
The commander of Army Forces, Pacific, was even more insistent on a revision, asking how he could absorb so many Negroes when his command was already scheduled to receive 50,000 Philippine Scouts and 29,500 Negroes in the second half of 1947. These two groups, which the command considered far less adaptable than white troops to occupational duties, would together make up about 40 percent of the command's total strength. Although Philippine Scouts in the theater never exceeded 31,000, the command's protest achieved some success. The War Department agreed to reduce black troops in the Pacific to 14 percent by 1 January 1947 and 13 percent by 1 July 1947.[7-16]
[Footnote 7-16: Memo for Rcd, Lt Col French, Theater Group, OPD, 7 May 46, sub: Negro Enlisted Strength, Pacific Theater, 1947, WDGOT 291.2. For a discussion of the Philippine Scouts in the Pacific theater, see Robert Ross Smith, "The Status of Philippine Military Forces During World War II," CMH files.]
No sooner had the demands of the overseas theaters been dealt with (p. 180) than the enlarged black quotas came under attack from the commanders of major forces. Instead of planning to absorb more Negroes, the Army Air Forces wanted to divest itself of some black units on the premise that unskilled troops were a liability in a highly technical service. General Spaatz reported that some 60 percent of all his black troops stationed in the United States in January 1946 were performing the duties of unskilled laborers and that very few could be trained for skilled tasks. He predicted that the Army Air Forces would soon have an even higher percentage of low-scoring Negroes because 15 percent of all men enlisting in his Regular Army units--expected to reach a total of 45,000 men by 1 July 1946--were black. To forestall this increase in "undesirable and uneconomical" troops, he wanted to stop inducting Negroes into the Army Air Forces and suspend all black enlistments in the Regular Army.[7-17]
[Footnote 7-17: Memo, CG, AAF, for ACofS, G-1, 25 Jan 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGAP 291.2.]
The Army Air Forces elaborated on these arguments in the following months, refining both its estimates and demands. Specifically, its manpower officials estimated that to reach the 15 percent black strength ordered by 1 July 1946 the Air Forces would have to take 50,500 Negroes into units that could efficiently use only 22,000 men. This embarrassment of more than 28,000 unusable men, the Army Air Forces claimed, would require eliminating tactical units and creating additional quartermaster car companies, mess platoons, and other service organizations.[7-18] The Air staff wanted to eliminate the unwanted 28,000 black airmen by raising to eighty the minimum classification test score for Regular Army enlistment in the Army Air Forces. In the end it retreated from this proposal, and on 25 February requested permission to use the 28,000 Negroes in service units, but over and above its 400,000-man troop basis. It promised to absorb all these men into the troop basis by 30 June 1946.[7-19]
[Footnote 7-18: Memo, Brig Gen William Metheny, Off, Commitments Div, ACofS Air Staff-3, for ACofS Air Staff-3, 18 Feb 46, WDGOT 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-19: DF, DCofAS (Maj Gen C. C. Chauncey) to G-3 25 Feb 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGOT 291.2.]
The Army staff rejected this plan on the grounds that any excess allowed above the current Air Forces troop basis would have to be balanced by a corresponding and unacceptable deficit in the Army Ground Forces and Army Service Forces.[7-20] The Army Air Forces countered with a proposal to discharge all black enlistees in excess of Air Forces requirements in the European theater who would accept discharge. It had in mind a group of 8,795 Negroes recently enlisted for a three-year period, who, in accordance with a lure designed to stimulate such enlistments, had chosen assignment in the Air Forces and a station in Europe. With a surplus of black troops, the Air Forces found itself increasingly unable to fulfill the "overseas theater of choice" enlistment contract. Since some men would undoubtedly refuse to serve anywhere but Europe, the Air staff (p. 181) reasoned, why not offer a discharge to all men who preferred separation over service elsewhere?
[Footnote 7-20: Memo, Actg ACofS, G-3, for CG, AAF, 14 Mar 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGOT 291.2.]
Again the Army staff turned down a request for a reduction in black troops. This time the Air Forces bowed to the inevitable--15 percent of its enlisted strength black--but grudgingly, for a quota of 50,419 Negroes, General Spaatz charged, "seriously jeopardizes the ability of the AAF to perform its assigned mission."[7-21]
[Footnote 7-21: Memo, ACofS, G-3, for CG, AAF, 21 Mar 46, sub: Authorized Military Personnel as of 31 December 1946 and 30 June 1947, WDGOT 320.2 (21 Mar 46); DF, CG, AAF, to ACofS, G-3, 26 Mar 46, same sub, WDGOT 291.21 (12 Feb 46).]
The Army Service Forces also objected. When queried,[7-22] the chiefs of its technical and administrative services all agreed they could use only small percentages of black troops, and only those men in the higher categories of the classification test. From the replies of the chiefs it was plain that none of the technical services planned to use Negroes in as much as 10 percent of spaces, and several wanted to exclude black units altogether. Furthermore, the test qualifications they wanted set for many jobs were consistently higher than those achieved by the men then performing the tasks. The staff of the Army Service Forces went so far as to advocate that no more than 3.29 percent of the overhead and miscellaneous positions in the Army Service Forces be entrusted to black troops.[7-23]
[Footnote 7-22: Memo, Actg Dir, Plans and Policy, ASF, for PMG et al., 23 May 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, AG 291.2 (23 May 46).]
[Footnote 7-23: The replies of the individual technical and administrative service chiefs, along with the response of the ASF Personnel Director, are inclosed in Memo, Chief, Plans and Policy Off, Dir of SS&P, for Dir, O&T, 21 Jun 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGSP 291.2 (Negro).]
These answers failed to impress the War Department's Director of Personnel and Administration and the Director of Organization and Training.[7-24] Both agreed that the technical and administrative services had failed to appreciate the problems and responsibilities outlined in War Department Circular 124; the assumption that black troops would not be used in certain types of duty in the future because they had not been so used in the past was unwarranted, General Paul added. Limited or token employment of Negroes, he declared, was no longer acceptable.[7-25]
[Footnote 7-24: Under WD Circular 134, 14 May 46, the War Department General Staff was reorganized, and many of its offices, including G-1 and G-3, were redesignated as of 11 June 1946. For an extended discussion of these changes, see James E. Hewes, Jr., From Root to McNamara: Army Organization and Administration, 1900-1963 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1975), Chapter IV.]
[Footnote 7-25: DF, D/OT to D/PA, 13 Jul 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGOT 291.21 (21 Jun 46); DF, D/PA to D/OT, 30 Jul 46, same sub, WDGAP 291.2 (15 Jul 46).]
Yet somehow the reality of black enlistments and inductions in 1946 never quite matched the Army's dire predictions. According to plans for 1 April 1946, Negroes in the continental United States would comprise 15.2 percent of the Army Service Forces, 15.4 percent of the Army Ground Forces, and 17 percent of the Army Air Forces. Actually, Negroes in continental commands on 30 April 1946 made up 14.86 percent of the Army Service Forces, 5.62 percent of the Army Ground Forces, and 11.86 percent of the Army Air Forces. The 116,752 black soldiers amounted to 12.35 percent of all troops based in the United States; overseas, the 67,372 Negroes constituted 7.73 percent of American (p. 182) force. Altogether, the 184,124 Negroes in the Army amounted to 10.14 percent of the whole.[7-26]
[Footnote 7-26: Strength of the Army (STM-30), 1 May 46; see also Memo, ACofS, G-1, for Chief, MPD, ASF, 3 Jun 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGPA 291.2. (12 Jul 46).]
The Quota in Practice
While the solution to the problem of too many black enlistees and too many low-scoring men was obvious, it was also replete with difficulty. The difficulty came from the complex way the Army obtained its manpower. It accepted volunteers for enlistment in the Regular Army and qualified veterans for the Organized Reserves; until November 1946 it also drafted men through the Selective Service and accepted volunteers for the draft.[7-27] At the same time, under certain conditions it accepted enlistment in the Regular Army of drafted men who had completed their tours. To curtail enlistment of Negroes and discharge low-scoring professionals, the Army would be obliged to manipulate the complex regulations governing the various forms of enlistment and sidestep the egalitarian provisions of the Selective Service System at a time when the service was trying to attract recruits and avoid charges of racial discrimination. Altogether it was quite a large order, and during the next two years the Army fought the battle of numbers on many fronts.
[Footnote 7-27: Volunteers for the draft were men classified 1-A by Selective Service who were allowed to sign up for immediate duty often in the service of their choice. The volunteer for the draft was only obliged to serve for the shorter period imposed on the draftee rather than the 36-month enlistment for the Regular Army.]
It first took on the draft. Although to stop inducting Negroes when the administration was trying to persuade Congress to extend the draft act was politically unwise, the Army saw no way to restrict the number of Negroes or eliminate substandard men so long as Selective Service insisted on 10 percent black calls and a minimum classification test score of seventy. In April 1946 the Army issued a call for 126,000 men, boldly specifying that no Negroes would be accepted. Out of the battle of memos with Selective Service that followed, a compromise emerged: a black call of 4 percent of the total in April, a return to the usual 10 percent call for Negroes in May, and another 4 percent call in June.[7-28] No draft calls were issued in July and August, but in September the Army staff tried again, canceling the call for Negroes and rejecting black volunteers for induction.[7-29] Again it encountered resistance from the Selective Service and the black community, and when the Secretary of War was sued for violation of the Selective Service Act the Army issued a 3 percent call for Negroes in October, the last call made under the 1940 draft law. In all, 16,888 Negroes were drafted into the Army in 1946, some 10.5 percent of the total.[7-30]
[Footnote 7-28: Report of the Director, Office of Selective Service Review, 31 March 1947, Table 56, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 7-29: Memo, Chief, Manpower Control Gp, D/PA, for TAG, 6 Sep 46, Utilization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army, WDGPA 291.2; D/PA Memo for Rcd, 1 Sep 46. WDGPA 291.2 (1 Sep 46-31 Dec 46).]
[Footnote 7-30: Figures vary for the number actually drafted; those given above are from Selective Service Monograph No. 10, Special Groups, Appendix, p. 201. See also "Review of the Month," _A Monthly Summary of Events and Trends in Race Relations_ 4 (October 1946):67.]
The Army had more success restricting black enlistments. In April (p. 183) 1946, at the same time it adopted the Gillem Board recommendations, the Army began to deny enlistment or reenlistment in the Regular Army to anyone scoring below seventy on the Army General Classification Test. The only exceptions were men who had been decorated for valor and men with previous service who had scored sixty-five and were recommended for reenlistment by their commanders.[7-31] The Army also stopped enlisting men with active venereal disease, not because the Medical Department was unable to cure them but because by and large their educational levels were low and, according to the classification tests, they had little aptitude for learning. The Army stopped recruiting men for special stations, hoping a denial of the European theater and other attractive assignments would lower the number of unwanted recruits.
[Footnote 7-31: WD Cir 110, 17 Apr 46.]
Using the new enlistment standards as a base, the Army quickly revised its estimated black strength downward. On 16 April 1946 the Secretary of War rescinded the order requiring major commands to retain a black strength of 15 percent.[7-32] The acting G-3 had already informed the commanding general of the Army Air Forces of the predicted drop in the number of black troops--from 13.3 percent in June 1946 to 10 percent a year later--and agreed the Army Air Forces could reduce its planned intake accordingly.[7-33] Estimating the European theater's capacity to absorb black troops at 21,845 men, approximately 10 percent of the command total, the Army staff agreed to readjust its planned allotment of Negroes to that command downward by some 1,500 spaces.[7-34]
[Footnote 7-32: Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al., 16 Apr 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, AGAO-S-A-M 291.2 (12 Apr 46).]
[Footnote 7-33: Memo, Actg ACofS, G-3, for CG, AAF, 12 Apr 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel, WDGOT 291.21 (12 Feb 46).]
[Footnote 7-34: Memo, ACofS, OPD, for CofS, 13 May 46, sub: Augmentation of the ETO Ceiling Strengths as of 1 Jul 46 (less AAF), WDCSA 320.2 (1946).]
These changes proved ill-advised, for the effort to curb the number of Negroes in the Regular Army was largely unsuccessful. The staff had overlooked the ineffectiveness of the Army's testing measures and the zeal of its recruiters who, pressed to fill their quotas, accepted enlistees without concern for the new standards. By mid-June the effect was readily apparent. The European theater, for example, reported some 19,000 Negroes in excess of billets in black units and some 2,000 men above the theater's current allotment of black troops. Assignment of Negroes to Europe had been stopped, but the number of black regulars waiting for overseas assignment stood at 5,000, a figure expected to double by the end of the summer. Some of this excess could be absorbed in eight newly created black units, but that still left black units worldwide 18 to 40 percent overstrength.[7-35]
[Footnote 7-35: G-1 Memo for Rcd (signed Col E. L. Heyduck, Enl Div), 18 Jun 46, WDGAP 291.2; see also EUCOM Hist Div (prepared by Margaret L. Geis), "Negro Personnel in the European Command, 1 January 1946-30 June 1950," Occupation Forces in Europe Series (Historical Division, European Command, 1952) (hereafter Geis Monograph), pp. 14-18, copy in CMH.]
Notice that Negroes totaled 16 percent of the Regular Army on 1 July 1946 with the personnel staff's projections running to a 24 percent level for the next year precipitated action in the War Department. (p. 184) On 15 July Marcus Ray and Dean Rusk, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of War, met with representatives of the Army staff to discuss black strength. Basing his decision on the consensus of that meeting, the Secretary of War on 17 July suspended enlistment of Negroes in the Regular Army. He excepted two categories of men from this ruling. Men who qualified and had actually served for six months in any of forty-eight unusual military occupational specialties in which there were chronic manpower shortages would be enlisted without promise of specific assignment to branch or station. At the same time, because of manpower shortages, the Army would continue to accept Negroes, already regulars, who wanted to reenlist.[7-36]
[Footnote 7-36: Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 17 Jul 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (9 Jul 46); D/PA Summary Sheet to CofS, 9 Jul 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes in Regular Army, WDGPA 291.2.]
While the new enlistment policy would help restore the Gillem Board's quantitative equilibrium to the Army, the secretary's exception allowing reenlistment of regulars would only intensify the qualitative imbalance between black and white soldiers. The nation's biracial educational system had produced an average black soldier who scored well below the average white soldier on all the Army's educational and training tests. The segregation policy had only complicated the problem by denying the talented Negro the full range of Army occupations and hence an equal chance for advancement. With the suspension of first-time enlistments, the qualitative imbalance was sure to grow, for now the highly qualified civilian would be passed over while the less qualified soldier was permitted to reenlist.
This imbalance was of particular concern to Marcus Ray who was present when the suspension of black enlistments had been decided upon. Ray had suggested that instead of barring all new enlistees the Army should discharge all Class V soldiers, whites and blacks alike, for the convenience of the government and recruit in their place an equal number of Class I and II candidates. Manpower officials had objected, arguing there was no point in enlisting more Negroes in Class I and II until the 10 percent ratio was again reached. Such a reduction, with current attrition, would take two years. At the same time, the Army manpower shortages made it impractical to discharge 92,000 soldiers, half of whom were white, in Class V. The organization and training representatives, on the other hand, agreed with Ray that it was (p. 185) in the best interest of the Army to discharge these men, pointing out that a recent increase in pay for enlisted men together with the continuing need for recruits with greater aptitude for learning would make the policy palatable to the Congress and the public.[7-37]
[Footnote 7-37: D/OT Memo for Red, 15 Jul 46; DF, D/OT to D/PA, 15 Jul 46, sub: Basic Training of Negro Personnel; both in WDGOT 291.2.]
The conferees deferred decision on the matter, but during the following months the War Department set out to achieve a qualitative balance between its black and white recruits. On 10 August 1946 the Chief of Staff directed commanders, under the authority of Army Regulation 615-369 which defined ineptness for military service, to eliminate after six months men "incapable of serving in the Army in a desirable manner after reasonable attempts have been made to utilize their capabilities." He went on to explain that this category included those not mentally qualified, generally defined as men scoring below seventy, and those repeatedly guilty of minor offenses.[7-38] The Army reissued the order in 1947, further defining the criteria for discharge to include those who needed continued and special instruction or supervision or who exhibited habitual drunkenness, ineptness, or inability to conform to group living. A further modification in 1949 would deny reenlistment to married men who had failed during their first enlistment to make corporal or single men who did not make private first class.[7-39]
[Footnote 7-38: WD Cir 241, 10 Aug 46.]
[Footnote 7-39: WD Cir 93, 9 Apr 47; D/PA Summary Sheet, 1 Sep 49, sub: Method of Reducing Negro Reenlistment Rate, WDGPA 291.2 (6 Apr 49).]
The measures were aimed at eliminating the least qualified men of both races, and in October 1946 General Paul decided the Army could now begin taking black recruits with the qualifications and background that allowed them "to become useful members of the Army."[7-40] To that end The Adjutant General announced on 2 October that as a further exception to the prohibition against black enlistments in the Regular Army all former officers and noncommissioned officers who volunteered would be accepted without limitation.[7-41] On 31 October he announced the establishment of a selective procurement program. With the exception of men who had been in certain specialized occupations for six months, all Negroes enlisting in the Regular Army had to score one hundred on the Army General Classification Test; the minimum score for white enlistees remained seventy.[7-42] At the same time, The Adjutant General rescinded for Negroes the choice-of-assignment provision of Regular Army enlistment contracts.
[Footnote 7-40: P&A Memo for Red, 30 Sep 46, attached to copy of Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 2 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06, WDGAP 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-41: Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 2 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (30 Sep 46).]
[Footnote 7-42: Ibid., 31 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (23 Oct 46); see also WD Cir 103, 1947. An exception to the AGCT 70 minimum for whites was made in the case of enlistment into the AAF which remained at 100 for both races.]
These measures helped lower the percentage of Negroes in the Army and reduced to some extent the differential in test scores between white and black soldiers. The percentage of Negroes dropped by 30 June 1947 to 7.91 percent of the Army, 8.99 percent of its enlisted strength (p. 186) and 9.4 percent of its Regular Army strength. Black enlisted strength of all the overseas commands stood at 8.75 percent, down from the 10.77 percent of the previous December. Percentages in the individual theaters reflected this trend; the European theater, for example, dropped from 10.33 percent black to 9.96, the Mediterranean theater from 10.05 to 8.03, and Alaska from 26.6 to 14.54.[7-43]
[Footnote 7-43: All figures are from STM-30, Strength of the Army. Figures for the Pacific theater were omitted because of the complex reorganization of Army troops in that area in early 1947. On 30 June 1947 the Army element in the Far East Command, the major Army organization in the Pacific, had 18,644 black enlisted troops, 8.56 percent of the command's total.]
Precise figures on the number of poorly qualified troops eliminated are unknown, but the European command expected to discharge some 12,000 low-scoring and unsuitable men, many of them black, in 1947.[7-44] Several commands reported that the new regulations materially improved the quality of black units by opening vacancies to better qualified men. General Paul could argue with considerable justification that in regulating the quality of its recruits the Army was following the spirit if not the letter of the Gillem Board Report. If the Army could set high enough standards it would get good men, and to this end the General Staff's Personnel and Administration Division asked for the support of commanders.[7-45]
[Footnote 7-44: Memo, Brig Gen J. J. O'Hare, Dep Dir, P&A, for SA, 9 Mar 48, sub: Implementation of WD Cir 124, CSGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-45: G-1 Memo for Rcd, 30 Sep 46, attached to Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 2 Oct 46, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P342.06 (30 Sep 46).]
Although these measures were helpful to the Army, they were frankly discriminatory, and they immediately raised a storm of protest. During the summer of 1946, for example, many black soldiers and airmen complained about the Army's rejection of black enlistments for the European theater. The NAACP, which received some of the soldiers' complaints, suggested that the War Department honor its pledges or immediately release all Negroes who were refused their choice of location.[7-46] The Army did just that, offering to discharge honorably those soldiers who, denied their theater of choice, rejected any substitute offered.[7-47]
[Footnote 7-46: Ltr, Walter White to SW, 18 Jun 46; Telg, White to SW, 24 Jun 46; both in SW 291.2 (Negro Troops).]
[Footnote 7-47: DF, OTIG to D/PA, 23 Jul 46, sub: Assignment of Negro Enlistees Who Have Selected ETO as Choice of Initial Assignment, WDSIG 220.3--Negro Enlistees.]
Later in 1946 a young Negro sued the Secretary of War and a Pittsburgh recruiting officer for refusing to enlist him. To make standards for black applicants substantially higher than those for whites, he alleged, violated the Preamble and Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, while the inducements offered for enlistment, for example the GI Bill of Rights, constituted a valuable property right denied him because of race. The suit asked that all further enlistments in the Army be stopped until Negroes were accepted on equal terms with whites and all special enlistment requirements for Negroes were abolished.[7-48] Commenting on the case, the chief of the War Department's Public Relations Division, Maj. Gen. Floyd L. Parks, defended the Gillem Board's 10 percent quota, but agreed that (p. 187) "we are on weak ground [in] having a different standard for admission between white and colored.... I think the thing to do is to put a ceiling over the number you take in, and then take the best ones."[7-49]
[Footnote 7-48: Pittsburgh Post Gazette, December 19, 1946.]
[Footnote 7-49: Memo, D/PRD for SW, ASW, and D/P&A, 19 Dec 46, ASW 291.2.]
The suit brought to a climax the feeling of indignation against Army policy that had been growing among some civil rights activists. One organization called on the Secretary of War to abandon the Gillem Board policy "and unequivocably and equitably integrate Negroes ... without any discrimination, segregation or quotas in any form, concept or manner."[7-50] Senator Robert M. LaFollette, Jr., of Wisconsin called the decision to suspend black enlistments race discrimination.[7-51] Walter P. Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers and the codirector of his union's Fair Practices Department, branded the establishment of a quota "undemocratic and in violation of principles for which they [Negroes] fought in the war" and demanded that black enlistment be reinstated and the quota abolished.[7-52] Invoking American tradition and the United Nations Charter, John Haynes Holmes, chairman of the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union, called for the abolition of enlistment quotas. The national commander of the United Negro and Allied Veterans of America announced that his organization unreservedly condemned the quota because it deliberately deprived citizens of their constitutional right to serve their country.[7-53]
[Footnote 7-50: Ltr, American Veterans Committee, Manhattan Chapter, to SW, 17 Jul 46, SW 291.2 (NT).]
[Footnote 7-51: Ltr, LaFollette to SW, 25 Jul 46, SW 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-52: Ltr, Reuther and William Oliver to SW, 23 Jul 46, SW 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-53: Ltr, J. H. Holmes to SW, 26 Jul 46; Ltr, Arthur D. Gatz, Nat'l Cmdr, United Negro and Allied Veterans of America, to SW, 20 Jul 46; both in SW 291.2.]
The replies of the Secretary of War to all these protests were very much alike. The Army's enlistment practices, he wrote, were based on a belief that black strength in the Army ought to bear a direct relationship to the percentage of Negroes in the population. As for the basic premise of what seemed to him a perfectly logical course of action, Patterson concluded that "acceptance of the Negro-white ratio existing in the civilian population as a basis for the Army's distribution of units and personnel is not considered discriminatory."[7-54] The secretary's responses were interesting, for they demonstrated a significant change in the Army's attitude toward the quota. There is evidence that the quota was devised by the Gillem Board as a temporary expedient to guarantee the substantial participation of Negroes. It was certainly so viewed by civil rights advocates. As late as December 1946 Assistant Secretary Petersen was still echoing this view when he explained that the quota was a temporary ceiling and the Army had no right to use it as a permanent bar to black enlistment.[7-55]
[Footnote 7-54: See Ltrs, SW to Wesley P. Brown, Adjutant, Jesse Clipper American Legion Post No. 430, Buffalo, N.Y., 30 Aug 46, and to Jesse O. Dedmon, Jr., Secy, Veterans Affairs Bureau, NAACP, 18 Nov 46; both in SW 291.2. The quote is from the latter document.]
[Footnote 7-55: Memo, Maj Gen Parks for SW, et al., 19 Dec 46 (with attached note signed "HP"), SW 291.2.]
Nevertheless it is also clear that the traditionalists considered the quota a means of permanently limiting black soldiers to a percentage equivalent to Negroes in the population. Assistant Secretary (p. 188) McCloy belonged to neither group. More than a year before in reviewing the Gillem Board's work he had declared: "I do not see any place for a quota in a policy that looks to utilization of Negroes on the basis of ability."
After a year of dealing with black overstrengths and juggling enlistment standards, General Paul and his staff thought otherwise. They believed that a ceiling must be imposed on the Army's black strength if a rapid and uncontrolled increase in the number of black troops was to be avoided. And it had to be avoided, they believed, lest it create a disproportionately large pool of black career soldiers with low aptitudes that would weaken the Army. Using the quota to limit the number of black troops, they maintained, was not necessarily discriminatory. It could be defended as a logical reading of the Gillem Board's declaration that "the proportion of Negro to white manpower as exists in the civil population" should be accepted in the peacetime Army to insure an orderly and uniform mobilization in a national emergency. With the Gillem policy to support it, the Army staff could impose a strict quota on the number of black soldiers and justify different enlistment standards for blacks and whites, a course that was in fact the only alternative to the curtailment of white enlistment under the manpower restrictions being imposed upon the postwar Army.[7-56]
[Footnote 7-56: DF, D/P&A to D/O&T, 28 Apr 47, sub: Negro Enlisted Strength, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46); idem for SA, 6 Aug 48, sub: Removing Restrictions on Negro Enlistments, CSGPA 291.2.]
Paul's reasoning was eventually endorsed by the new Chief of Staff, General Omar N. Bradley, Secretary Patterson, and his successor, Secretary of the Army Kenneth C. Royall.[7-57] Beginning in mid-1947 the enlistment of Negroes was carefully geared to their percentage of the total strength of the Army, not to a fixed quota or percentage of those enlisting. This limitation on black enlistment was made more permanent in 1949 when it was included in the Army's mobilization plan, the basic manpower planning document.[7-58]
[Footnote 7-57: Memo, ONB (Gen Bradley) for Gen Paul, 9 Aug 48, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (6 Aug 48). Bradley succeeded Eisenhower as Chief of Staff on 7 February 1948, and Royall succeeded Patterson on 19 July 1947. Royall assumed the title Secretary of the Army on 17 September 1947 under the terms of the National Security Act of 1947.]
[Footnote 7-58: AMP-1 Personnel Annex, 1 Jun 49, P&D 370.0 (25 Apr 49); see also Memo, Chief, Planning Office, P&A, for Brig Gen John E. Dahlquist (Dep P&A), 4 Feb 49, sub: Utilization of Negroes in Mobilization, D/PA 291.2 (4 Feb 49).]
The adjustment of enlistment quotas to increase or curtail black strength quickly became routine in the Army. When the number of Negroes dropped below 10 percent of the Army's total strength in June 1947, The Adjutant General set a quota for the enlistment of black soldiers.[7-59] When this quota was met in late August, the enlistment of Negroes with no special training was reduced to 500 men per month.[7-60] As part of a Personnel and Administration Division program to increase the number and kinds of black units, the quota was temporarily increased to 3,000 men per month for four months beginning in December 1947.[7-61] Finding itself once again exceeding the 10 (p. 189) percent black strength figure, the Army suspended the enlistment of all Negroes for nine months beginning in April 1949.[7-62]
[Footnote 7-59: Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 9 Jul 47, sub: Enlistment of Negroes AGSE-P291.2. (27 Jun 47).]
[Footnote 7-60: T-7286, TAG to CO, Gen Ground, Ft. Monroe (AGF), 27 Aug 47, 291.254 Negroes; Ltr, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 3 Sep 47, sub: Enlistment of Negroes, AGSE-P291.2.]
[Footnote 7-61: Msg, TAG to CG's, All ZI Armies, 19 Dec 47, AGSE-P 291.254.]
[Footnote 7-62: Msg, TAG to CG, All Armies (ZI), et al., 17 Mar 49, WCL 22839; D/PA Summary Sheet for VCofS, 1 Sep 49, sub: Method of Reducing the Negro Reenlistment Rate, CSGPA 291.2 (6 Apr 49).]
In effect, the Gillem Board's critics who predicted that the quota would become permanent were correct, but the quota was only the most publicized manifestation of the general scheme of apportioning manpower by race throughout the Army. General Paul had offered one solution to the problem in July 1946. He recommended that each major command and service be allocated its proportionate share of black troops; that such troops "have the over-all average frequency of AGCT grades occurring among Negro military personnel"; and that major commands and services submit plans for establishing enough units and overhead positions to accommodate their total allocations.[7-63] But Paul did not anticipate the low-scoring soldier's penchant for reenlistment or the ability of some commanders, often on the basis of this fact, to justify the rejection of further black allotments. Thus, in pursuit of a racial policy designed to promote the efficient use of manpower, the G-1 and G-3 sections of the General Staff wrestled for almost five years with the problem of racial balances in the various commands, continental armies, and training programs.
[Footnote 7-63: DF, D/PA to D/OT, 30 Jul 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army, WDGPA 291.2 (15 Jul 46).]
Broader Opportunities
The equitable distribution of Negroes throughout each major command and service was complicated by certain provisions of Circular 124. Along with the quota, the policy prescribed grouping black units, not to exceed regimental size, with white units in composite organizations and integrating black specialists in overhead organizations. The composite organizations were primarily the concern of the G-3 (later the Organization and Training Division) section of the General Staff, and in June 1946 its director, Lt. Gen. Charles P. Hall, brought the matter to the attention of major commanders. Although the War Department did not want to establish an arbitrary number of black combat units, Hall explained, the new policy stressed the development of such units to provide a broader base for future expansion, and he wanted more black combat units organized as rapidly as trained troops became available. To that end he called for a survey of all black units to find out their current organization and assignment.[7-64]
[Footnote 7-64: Cir as Memo, TAG for CG, AAF et al., 10 Jun 46, sub: Organization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army, AG 291.2 (4 Jun 46).]
Army Ground Forces reported that it had formed some composite units, but its largest black unit, the 25th Regimental Combat Team, had been attached to the V Corps at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, instead of being made an organic element in a division. Practically all service group headquarters reported separate black and white battalions (p. 190) under their control, but many of the organizations in the Army Service Forces--those under the Provost Marshal General and the Surgeon General, for example--still had no black units, let alone composite organizations. The Caribbean Defense Command, the Trinidad Base Command, and the Headquarters Base Command of the Antilles Department reported similar situations. The Mediterranean theater was using some Negroes with special skills in appropriate overhead organizations, but in the vast European Command Negroes were assigned to separate regiments and smaller units. There were two exceptions: one provisional black regiment was attached to the 1st Infantry Division, and a black field artillery battalion was attached to each of the three occupation divisions. The Alaskan Department and the Okinawa Base Command had black units, both separate and grouped with white units, but the Yokohama Base Command continued to use specially skilled Negroes in black units because of the great demand for qualified persons in those units.[7-65]
[Footnote 7-65: Memo, D/O&T for ASW, 18 Jul 46, sub: Organization of Negro Manpower in Postwar Army, WDGOT 291.2.]
To claim, as Hall did to Assistant Secretary Petersen, that black units were being used like white units was misleading. Despite the examples cited in the survey, many black units still remained independent organizations, and with one major exception black combat units grouped with white units were attached rather than assigned as organizational elements of a parent unit. This was an important distinction.[7-66] The constant imposition of attached status on a unit that under normal circumstances would be assigned as an organic element of a division introduced a sense of impermanence and alienation just as it relieved the division commander of considerable administrative control and hence proprietary interest in the unit.
[Footnote 7-66: An attached unit, such as a tank destroyer battalion, is one temporarily included in a larger organization; an assigned unit is one permanently given to a larger organization as part of its organic establishment. On the distinction between attached and assigned status, see Ltr, CSA to CG, CONARC, 21 Jul 55, CSUSA 322.17 (Div), and CMH, "Lineages and Honors: History, Principles, and Preparation," June 1962, in CMH.]
Attached status, so common for black units, thus weakened morale and hampered training as Petersen well understood. Noting the favorable attitude of the division commander, he had asked in April 1946 if it was possible to assign the black 555th Parachute Battalion to the celebrated 82d Airborne Division.[7-67] The answer was no. The commanding general of the Army Ground Forces, General Devers, justified attachment rather than assignment of the black battalion to the 82d on the grounds that the Army's race policy called for the progressive adoption of the composite unit and attachment was a part of this process. Assignment of such units was, on the other hand, part of a long-range plan to put the new policy into effect and should still be subject to considerable study. Further justifying the status quo, he pointed to the division's low strength, which he said resulted from a lack of volunteers. Offering his own variation (p. 191) of the "Catch-22" theme, he suggested that before any black battalion was assigned to a large combat unit, the effect of such an assignment on the larger unit's combat efficiency would first have to be studied. Finally, he questioned the desirability of having a black unit assume the history of a white unit; evidently he did not realize that the intention was to assign a black unit with its black history to the division.[7-68]
[Footnote 7-67: Memo, Actg, ACofS, G-3, for CG, AGF, 3 Jun 46, sub: Formation of Composite White-Negro Units, with attachment, WDGOT 291.21 (30 Apr 46).]
[Footnote 7-68: Memo, CG, AFG, for CofS, 21 June 46, sub: Formation of Composite White-Negro Units, GNGCT-41 291.2 (Negro) (3 Jun 46).]
In the face of such arguments Hall accepted what he called the "nonfeasibility" of replacing one of the 82d's organic battalions with the 555th, but he asked whether an additional parachute battalion could be authorized for the division so that the 555th could be assigned without eliminating a white battalion. He reiterated the arguments for such an assignment, adding that it would invigorate the 555th's training, attract more and better black recruits, and better implement the provisions of Circular 124.[7-69] General Devers remained unconvinced. He doubted that assigning the black battalion to the (p. 192) division would improve the battalion's training, and he was "unalterably opposed" to adding an extra battalion. He found the idea unsound from both a tactical and organizational point of view. It was, he said, undesirable to reorganize a division solely to assign a black unit.[7-70]
[Footnote 7-69: DF, D/O&T to CG, AGF, 24 Jul 46, sub: Formation of Composite White-Negro Units, WDGOT 291.21 (30 Apr 46).]
[Footnote 7-70: Memo, CG, AGF, for D/O&T, 1 Aug 46, sub: Formation of Composite White-Negro Units, CMT 2 to DF, D/O&T to CG, AGF, 24 Jul 46, same sub, WDGOT 291.21 (30 Apr 46).]
General Hall gave up the argument, and the 555th remained attached to the 82d. Attached status would remain the general pattern for black combat units for several years.[7-71] The assignment of the 24th Infantry to the 25th Infantry Division in Japan was the major exception to this rule, but the 24th was the only black regiment left intact, and it was administratively difficult to leave such a large organization in attached status for long. The other black regiment on active duty, the 25th Infantry, was split; its battalions, still carrying their unit designations, were attached to various divisions to replace inactive or unfilled organic elements. The 9th and 10th Cavalry, the other major black units, were inactivated along with the 2d Cavalry Division in 1944, but reactivated in 1950 as separate tank battalions.
[Footnote 7-71: Memo, D/O&T for SW, 19 Sep 46, sub: Request for Memorandum, WDGOT 291.21 (12 Sep 46).]
That this distinction between attached and assigned status was considered important became clear in the fall of 1947. At that time the personnel organization suggested that the word "separate" be deleted from a sentence of Circular 124: "Employment will be in Negro regiments or groups, separate battalions or squadrons, and separate companies, troops, or batteries." General Paul reasoned that the word was redundant since a black unit was by definition a separate unit. General Devers was strongly opposed to deletion on grounds that it would lead to the indiscriminate organization of small black units within larger units. He argued that the Gillem Board had provided for black units as part of larger units, but not as organic parts. He believed that a separate black unit should continue to be attached when it replaced a white unit; otherwise it would lose its identity by becoming an organic part of a mixed unit. Larger considerations seem also to have influenced his conclusion: "Our implementation of the Negro problem has not progressed to the degree where we can accept this step. We have already progressed beyond that which is acceptable in many states and we still have a considerable latitude in the present policy without further liberalizing it from the Negro viewpoint."[7-72] The Chief of Staff supported Paul's view, however, and the word "separate" was excised.[7-73]
[Footnote 7-72: DF, CG, AGF, to D/P&A, 15 Sep 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army. Policy; AGF DF, 27 Aug 47, same sub; both in GNGAP-M 291.2 (27 Aug 47). The quote is from the former document.]
[Footnote 7-73: DA Cir 32-III, 30 Oct 47. The life of Circular 124 was extended indefinitely by DA Circular 24-II, 17 Oct 47, and DA Ltr AGAO 291.2 (16 Mar 49).]
But the practice of attaching rather than assigning black units continued until the end of 1949. Only then, and increasingly during 1950, did the Army begin to assign a number of black units as organic parts of combat divisions. More noteworthy, Negroes began to be assigned to fill the spaces in parts of white units. Thus the 3d (p. 193) Battalion of the 9th Infantry and the 3d Battalion of the 188th became black units in 1950.
Despite the emergence of racially composite units, the Army's execution of the Gillem Board recommendation on the integration of black and white units was criticized by black leaders. The board had placed no limitation on the size of the units to be integrated, and its call for progressive steps to utilize black manpower implied to many that the process of forming composite black and white units would continue till it included the smaller service units, which still contained the majority of black troops. It was one thing, the Army staff concluded, to assign a self-sustaining black battalion to a division, but quite another to assign a small black service unit in a similar fashion. As a spokesman for the Personnel and Administration Division put it in a 1946 address, the Army was "not now ready to mix Negro and white personnel in the same company or battery, for messing and housing." Ignoring the Navy's experience to the contrary, he concluded that to do so might provoke serious opposition from the men in the ranks and from the American public.[7-74]
[Footnote 7-74: Col. H. E. Kessinger, Exec Off, ACofS, G-1, "Utilization of Negro Manpower, 1946," copy in WDGPA 291.2 (1946).]
Accordingly, G-1 and G-3 agreed to reject the Mediterranean theater's 1946 plan to organize composite service units in the 88th Infantry Division because such organization "involves the integration of Negro platoons or Negro sections into white companies, a combination which is not in accordance with the policy as expressed in Circular 124."[7-75] In the separate case of black service companies--for example, the many transportation truck companies and ordnance evacuation companies--theater commanders tended to combine them first into quartermaster trains and then attach them to their combat divisions.[7-76]
[Footnote 7-75: DF, ACofS, G-1, to CofS, 3 Jun 46, sub: Implementation of the Gillem Board, WDGAP 291.2 (24 Nov 45); see also Routing Form, ACofS, G-1, same date, subject, and file.]
[Footnote 7-76: For the formation of quartermaster trains in Europe, see Geis Monograph, pp. 89-90.]
Despite the relaxation in the distinction between attached and assigned status in the case of large black units, the Army staff remained adamantly opposed to the combination of small black with small white units. The Personnel and Administration Division jealously guarded the orthodoxy of this interpretation. Commenting on one proposal to combine small units in April 1948, General Paul noted that while grouping units of company size or greater was permissible, the Army had not yet reached the stage where two white companies and two black companies could be organized into a single battalion. Until the process of forming racially composite units developed to this extent, he told the Under Secretary of the Army, William H. Draper, Jr., the experimental mixing of small black and white units had no place in the program to expand the use of Negroes in the Army.[7-77] He did not say when such a process would become appropriate or possible. Several months later Paul flatly told the Chief of Staff that integration of black and white platoons in a company was precluded by stated Army policy.[7-78]
[Footnote 7-77: Memo, D/P&A for Under SA, 29 Apr 48, sub: Negro Utilization in the Postwar Army, CSGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 7-78: Idem for CofS, 21 Jun 48, CSGPA 291.2.]
Assignments (p. 194)
The organization of black units was primarily the concern of the Organization and Training Division; the Personnel and Administration Division's major emphasis was on finding more jobs for black soldiers in keeping with the Gillem Board's call for the use of Negroes on a broader professional scale. This could best be done, Paul decided, by creating new black units in a variety of specialties and by using more Negroes in overhead spaces in unit headquarters where black specialists would be completely interspersed with white. To that end his office prepared plans in November 1946 listing numerous occupational specialties that might be offered black recruits. It also outlined in considerable detail a proposal for converting several organizations to black units, including a field artillery (155-mm. howitzer) battalion, a tank company, a chemical mortar company, and an ordnance heavy automotive maintenance company. These units would be considered experimental in the sense that the men would be specially selected and distributed in terms of ability. The officers, Negroes insofar as practical, and cadre noncommissioned officers would be specially assigned. Morale and learning ability would be carefully monitored, and special training would be given men with below average AGCT scores. At the end of six months, these organizations would be measured against comparable white units. Mindful of the controversial aspects of his plan, Paul had a draft circulated among the major commands and services.[7-79]
[Footnote 7-79: DF, D/P&A to CG, AGF, et al., 16 Nov 46, sub: Proposed Directive, Utilization of Negro Military Personnel; see also P&A Memo for Rcd, 14 Nov 46; both in WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46).]
The Army Ground Forces, first to answer, concentrated on Paul's proposal for experimental black units. Maj. Gen. Charles L. Bolte, speaking for the commanding general, reported that in July 1946 the command had begun a training experiment to determine the most effective assignments for black enlisted men in the combat arms. Because of troop reductions and the policy of discharging individuals with low test scores, he said, the experiment had lasted only five weeks. Five weeks was apparently long enough, however, for Brig. Gen. Benjamin F. Caffey, commander of the 25th Regimental Combat Team (Provisional), to reach some rather startling conclusions. He discovered that the black soldier possessed an untrained and undisciplined mind and lacked confidence and pride in himself. In the past the Negro had been unable to summon the physical courage and stamina needed to withstand the shocks of modern battle. Integrating individual Negroes or small black units into white organizations would therefore only lower the standard of efficiency of the entire command. He discounted the integration after the Battle of the Bulge, saying that it succeeded only because it came at the end of the war and during pursuit action. "It still remains a moot question," Caffey concluded, "as to whether the Negroes in integrated units would have fought in a tough attack or defensive battle." Curiously enough he went on to say that until Negroes reached the educational level of whites, they should be organized into small combat units--battalions and smaller--and attached to white organizations in order to learn the proper standards of military discipline, conduct, administration, (p. 195) and training. Despite its unfavorable opinion of experimental black units, the Army Ground Forces did not reject the whole proposal outright but asked for a postponement of six months until its own reorganization, required by the War Department, was completed.[7-80]
[Footnote 7-80: Ltr, Brig Gen B. F. Caffey, CG, 25th RCT (Prov), Ft. Benning Ga., to CG, AGF, 4 Dec 46, AGF 291.2; DF, CG, AGF, to D/P&A, 22 Nov 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel, WDGPA 291.2 (Negro) (16 Nov 46).]
The other forces also rejected the idea of experimental black units. General Spaatz once again declared that the mission of the Army Air Forces was already seriously hampered by budgetary and manpower limitations and experimentation would only sacrifice time, money, manpower, and training urgently needed by the Army Air Forces to fulfill its primary mission. He believed, moreover, that such an experiment would be weighted in favor of Negroes since comparisons would be drawn between specially selected and trained black units and average white units.[7-81] In a similar vein the Director of Organization and Training, General Hall, found the conversion "undesirable at this time." He also concluded that the problem was not limited to training difficulties but involved a "combination of factors" and could be solved through the application of common sense by the local commander.[7-82] The Chiefs of Ordnance and the Chemical Corps, the technical services involved in the proposed experiment, concurred in the plan but added that they had no Negroes available for the designated units.[7-83]
[Footnote 7-81: DF, CG, AAF, to D/P&A, 27 Nov 45, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel, WDGPA 291.2 (16 Nov 46).]
[Footnote 7-82: Memo, D/O&T for D/P&A, 4 Dec 46, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel, WDGOT 291.2 (16 Nov 46).]
[Footnote 7-83: Tabs E and F to DF, D/P&A to DCofS, 10 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead Installations, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46).]
In the face of this strong opposition, Paul set aside his plan to establish experimental black units and concentrated instead on the use of Negroes in overhead positions. On 10 January 1947 he drew up for the Chief of Staff's office a list of 112 military occupational specialties most commonly needed in overhead installations, including skilled jobs in the Signal, Ordnance, Transportation, Medical, and Finance Corps from which Negroes had been excluded. He called for an immediate survey of the Army commands to determine specialties to which Negroes might be assigned, the number of Negroes that could be used in each, and the number of Negroes already qualified and available for immediate assignment. Depending on the answers to this survey, he proposed that commanders assign immediately to overhead jobs those Negroes qualified by school training, and open the pertinent specialist courses to Negroes. Black quotas for the courses would be increased, not only for recruits completing basic training, who would be earmarked for assignment to overhead spaces, but also for men already assigned to units, who would be returned to their units for such assignments upon completion of their courses. Negroes thus assigned would perform the same duties as whites alongside them, but they would be billeted and messed in separate detachments or (p. 196) attached to existing black units for quarters and food.[7-84]
[Footnote 7-84: DF, D/P&A to DCofS, 10 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead Installations, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46).]
This proposal also met with some opposition. General Spaatz, for example, objected on the same grounds he had used against experimental black units. Forcing the military development of persons on the basis of color, General Ira C. Eaker, the deputy commander of Army Air Forces, argued, was detrimental to the organization as a whole. Spaatz added that it was desirable and necessary to select individual men on the basis of their potential contribution to the service rather than in response to such criteria as race.[7-85]
[Footnote 7-85: DF, CG, AAF (signed by Dep CG, Lt Gen Ira C. Eaker), to D/P&A, 20 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead Installations, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46).]
The Acting Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj. Gen. Henry I. Hodes, objected to the timing of the Paul proposal since it would require action by field commanders during a period when continuing mass demobilization and severe budget limitations were already causing rapid and frequent adjustments, especially in overhead installations. He also felt that sending men to school would disrupt unit activities; altogether too many men would be assigned to overhead jobs, particularly during the period when Negroes were receiving training. Finally, he believed that Paul's directive was too detailed. He doubted that it was workable because it centralized power in Washington.[7-86]
[Footnote 7-86: Memo, ADCofS for D/P&A, 24 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead Installations, WDCSA 291.2 (10 Jan 47).]
General Paul disagreed. The major flow of manpower, he maintained, was going to domestic rather than overseas installations. A relatively small shift of manpower was contemplated in his plan and would therefore cause little dislocation. The plan would provide commanders with the trained men they had been asking for. School training inevitably required men to be temporarily absent from their units, but, since commanders always complained about the scarcity of trained Negroes, Paul predicted that they would accept a temporary inconvenience in order to have their men school trained. The Gillem Board policy had been in effect for nine months, and "no material implementation by field commanders has as yet come to the attention of the division." If any changes were to be accomplished, Paul declared, "a specific directive must be issued." Since the Chief of Staff had charged the Personnel and Administration Division with implementing Gillem Board policy and since that policy expressly directed the use of Negroes in overhead positions, it seemed to Paul "inconceivable that any proposition ... designed to improve the caliber of any of their Negro personnel would be unworkable in the sense of creating a personnel shortage." He again recommended that the directive be approved and released to the public to "further the spirit and recommendations of the Gillem Board Report."[7-87]
[Footnote 7-87: Memo, D/P&A for General Hodes, 29 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Personnel in Overhead Installations, WDGPA 291.2 (12 Jul 46).]
His superiors did not agree. Instead of a directive, General Hodes ordered yet another survey to determine whether commanders were actually complying with Circular 124. He wanted all commands (p. 197) to itemize all the occupation specialties of major importance that contained black troops in overhead spaces.[7-88] Needless to say, the survey added little to the Army's knowledge of its racial problems. Most commanders reported full compliance with the circular and had no further recommendations.
[Footnote 7-88: Memo, ADCofS for D/P&A, 4 Feb 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead Installations, WDCSA 291.2 (10 Jan 47); Ltr, TAG to CG, AAF, et al., 5 Mar 47, same sub, AGAM-PM 291.2 (27 Feb 47).]
With rare exceptions their statistics proved their claims specious. The Far East Command, for example, reported no Negroes in overhead spaces, although General MacArthur planned to incorporate about 400 Negroes into the bulk overhead units in Japan in July 1947. He reported that he would assign Negroes to overhead positions when qualified men could be spared. For the present they were needed in black units.[7-89] Other commands produced similar statistics. The Mediterranean theater, 8 percent black, had only four Negroes in 2,700 overhead spaces, a decrease over the previous year, because, as its commander explained, a shortage of skilled technicians and noncommissioned officers in black units meant that none could be spared. More than 20 percent black, the Alaskan Department had no Negroes in overhead spaces. In Europe, on the other hand, some 2,125 overhead spaces, 18.5 percent of the total, were filled by Negroes.[7-90]
[Footnote 7-89: Msg, CINCFE to WD for AGPP-P, 3 May 47, C-52352. Although CINCFE was a joint commander, his report concerned Army personnel only.]
[Footnote 7-90: Ltr, CG, MTO, to TAG, 16 Apr 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead Installations; Ltr, CG, Alaskan Dept, to TAG, 14 Apr 47, same sub; Ltr, CG, EUCOM, to TAG, 15 Apr 47, same sub. All in AGPP-P 291.2 (6 Feb 47).]
Although Negroes held some 7 percent of all overhead positions in the field services, the picture was far from clear. More than 8 percent of the Army Air Forces' 105,000 overhead spaces, for example, were filled by Negroes, but the Army Ground Forces used only 473 Negroes, who occupied 5 percent of its overhead spaces. In the continental armies almost 14,000 Negroes were assigned to overhead, 13.35 percent of the total of such spaces--a more than equitable figure. Yet most were cooks, bakers, truck drivers, and the like; all finance clerks, motion picture projectionists, and personnel assistants were white. In the field commands the use of Negroes in Signal, Ordnance, Transportation, Medical, and Finance overhead spaces was at a minimum, although figures varied from one command to the other. The Transportation Corps, more than 23 percent black, used almost 25 percent of its Negroes in overhead; the Chemical Corps, 28 percent black, used more than 30 percent of its Negroes in overhead. At the same time virtually all skilled military occupational specialties were closed to Negroes in the Signal Corps, and the Chief of Finance stated flatly: "It is considered impractical to have negro overhead assigned to these [field] activities and none are utilized."[7-91]
[Footnote 7-91: The reports of all these services are inclosures to DF, TAG to D/P&A, 23 Apr 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Military Personnel in Overhead Installations, AGPP-P 291.2 (6 Feb 47). The quote is from Ltr, Chief of Finance Corps to TAG, 25 Mar 47, same sub.]
The survey attested to a dismal lack of progress in the (p. 198) development of specialist training for Negroes. Although all the commanders of the zone of interior armies reported that Negroes had equal opportunity with whites to attend Army schools, in fact more than half of all the Army's courses were not open to black soldiers regardless of their qualifications. The Ordnance Department, for example, declared that all its technical courses were open to qualified Negroes, but as late as November 1947 the Ordnance School in Atlanta, Georgia, had openings for 440 whites but none for blacks.
Ironically, the results of the Hodes survey were announced just four days short of Circular 124's first birthday. Along with the other surveys and directives of the past year, it demonstrated that in several important particulars the Gillem Board's recommendations were being only partially and indifferently followed. Obviously, some way must be found to dispel the atmosphere of indifference, and in some quarters hostility, that now enveloped Circular 124.
A New Approach
A new approach was possible mainly because General Paul and his staff had amassed considerable experience during the past year in how to use black troops. They had come to understand that the problems inherent in broadening the employment of black soldiers--the procurement of desirable black recruits, their training, especially school training for military occupational specialties, and their eventual placement in spaces that used that training--were interrelated and that progress in one of these areas was impossible without advances in the other two. In November 1947 the Personnel and Administration Division decided to push for a modest step-by-step increase in the number of jobs open to Negroes, using this increase to justify an expansion of school quotas for Negroes and a special recruitment program.
It was a good time for such an initiative, for the Army was in the midst of an important reorganization of its program for specialist training. On 9 May 1947 the War Department had introduced a Career Guidance Program for managing the careers of enlisted men. To help each soldier develop his maximum potential and provide the most equitable system for promotions, it divided all Army jobs into several career fields--two, for example, were infantry and food service--and established certain job progressions, or ladders, within each field. An enlisted man could move up the ladder in his career field to increased responsibility and higher rank as he completed school courses, gained experience, and passed examinations.[7-92]
[Footnote 7-92: WD Cir 118, 9 May 47.]
General Paul wanted to take advantage of this unusually fluid situation. He could point out that black soldiers must be included in the new program, but how was he to fit them in? Black units lacked the diverse jobs open to whites, and as a result Negroes were clustered in a relatively small number of military specialties with few career fields open to them. Moreover, some 111 of the Army's 124 listed school courses required an Army General Classification Test score (p. 199) of ninety for admission, and the Personnel and Administration Division discovered that 72 percent of Negroes enlisted between April 1946 and March 1947 as compared to 29 percent of whites scored below that minimum. Excluded from schools, these men would find it difficult to move up the career ladders.[7-93]
[Footnote 7-93: P&A Memo for Rcd, attached to DF, D/P&A to TAG, 11 Jun 47, sub: Utilization of Negro Manpower in the Postwar Army in Connection With Enlisted Career Guidance Program, WDGPA 291.2 (11 Jun 47).]
Concerned that the new career program would discriminate against black soldiers, Paul could not, however, agree with the solution suggested by Roy K. Davenport, an Army manpower expert. On the basis of a detailed study that he and a representative of the Personnel and Administration Division conducted on Negroes in the career program, Davenport concluded that despite significant improvement in the quality of black recruits in recent months more than half the black enlisted men would still fail to qualify for the schooling demanded in the new program. He wanted the Army to consider dropping the test score requirement for school admission and substituting a "composite of variables," including length of service in a military occupation and special performance ratings. Such a system, he pointed out, would insure the most capable in terms of performance would be given opportunities for schooling and would eliminate the racial differential in career opportunity. It was equally important, Davenport thought, to broaden arbitrarily the list of occupational specialties, open all school courses to Negroes, and increase the black quotas for courses already open to them.[7-94]
[Footnote 7-94: Davenport, "Matters Relating to the Participation of Negro Personnel in the Career Program," attached to DF, D/P&A to Brig Gen J. J. O'Hare, Chief, Mil Pers Mgt Gp, P&A Div, 3 Nov 47, WDGPA 291.2 (11 Jul 47).]
Mindful of the strong opposition to his recent attempts to train Negroes for new overhead assignments, General Paul did not see how occupational specialties could be increased until new units or converted white ones were formed, or, for that matter, how school quotas could be increased unless positions for Negroes existed to justify the training. He believed that the Army should first widen the employment of black units and individuals in overhead spaces, and then follow up with increased school quotas and special recruitment. Paul had already learned from recent surveys that the number of available overhead positions would allow only a modest increase in the number of specialized jobs available to Negroes; any significant increase would require the creation of new black units. Given the limitations on organized units, any increase would be at the expense of white units.
The Organization and Training Division had the right to decide which units would be white and which black, and considering the strong opposition in that division to the creation of more black units, an opposition that enjoyed support from the Chief of Staff's office, Paul's efforts seemed in vain. But again an unusual opportunity presented itself when the Chief of Staff approved a reorganization of the general reserve in late 1947. It established a continentally based, mobile striking force of four divisions with supporting units. Each unit would have a well-trained core of Regular Army or other troops who might be expected to remain in the service for a (p. 200) considerable period of time. Manpower and budget limitations precluded a fully manned and trained general reserve, but new units for the four continental divisions, which were in varying stages of readiness, were authorized.[7-95]
[Footnote 7-95: For a discussion of the reorganization of the general reserve, see the introduction to John B. Wilson's "U.S. Army Lineage and Honors: The Division," in CMH.]
Here was a chance to create some black units, and Paul jumped at it. During the activation and reorganization of the units for the general reserve he persuaded the Organization and Training Division to convert nineteen white units to black: seven combat (including infantry and field artillery battalions), five combat support, and seven service units for a total of 8,000 spaces. Nine of the units were attached to general reserve divisions, including the 2d Armored, 2d Infantry, and 82d Airborne Division. The rest, nondivisional elements, were assigned to the various continental armies.[7-96]
[Footnote 7-96: Ltrs, TAG to CG, Each Army, et al., 18 Dec 47 and 1 Mar 48. sub: Activation and Reorganization of Certain Units of the General Reserve, AGAO-1 322 (28 Nov 47 and 8 Jan 48).]
With the spaces in hand, the Personnel and Administration Division launched a special drive in late December 1947 to secure 6,318 Negroes, 565 men per week, above the normal recruiting quotas. It called on the commanding generals of the continental armies to enlist men for three years' service in the Regular Army from among those (p. 201) who had previous military service, had completed high school, or had won the Bronze Star, Commendation Ribbon, or a decoration for valor, and who could make a "reasonable" score on the classification test. After basic training at Fort Dix and Fort Knox, the men would be eligible for specialized schooling and direct assignment to the newly converted units.[7-97]
[Footnote 7-97: Army Memo 600-750-26, 17 Dec 47, sub: Enlistment of Negroes for Special Units; DF, D/P&A to TAG, 27 Jan 48, sub: Training Div Assignment Procedures for Negro Pers Enlisting Under Provisions of DA Memo 600-750-26, 17 Dec 47, CSGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 48).]
The conversion of units did not expand to any great extent the range of military specialties open to Negroes because they were already serving in similarly organized units. But it did increase the number of skilled occupation slots available to them. To force a further increase in the number of school-trained Negroes, Paul asked The Adjutant General to determine how many spaces for school-trained specialists existed in the units converted from white to black and how many spaces for school-trained specialists were unfilled in black units worldwide. He wanted to increase the quotas for each school-trained specialty to insure filling all these positions.[7-98] He also arranged to increase black quotas in certain Military Police, Signal, and Medical Corps courses, and he insisted that a directive be sent to all major continental commands making mandatory the use of Negroes trained under the increased school quotas.[7-99] Moving further along these lines, Paul suggested The Adjutant General assign a black officer to study measures that might broaden the use of Negroes in the Army, increase school quotas for them, select black students properly, and assign trained black soldiers to suitable specialties.[7-100]
[Footnote 7-98: DF, D/P&A to TAG, 27 Jan 48, sub: Training Div Assignment Procedures for Negro Personnel Enlisting Under Provisions of DA Memo 600-750-26, 17 Dec 47; ibid., 29 Jan 48, sub: Notification to Z1 Armies of Certain Negro School Training; both in CSGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 48).]
[Footnote 7-99: Ibid., 1 Mar 48, sub: Utilization of Negro School Trained Personnel, CSGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 48).]
[Footnote 7-100: DF D/P&A for Brig Gen Joseph J. O'Hare, Chief Mil Pers Mgt Gp, 3 Nov 47, CSGPA 291.2 (3 Nov 47).]
The Adjutant General assigned Maj. James D. Fowler, a black graduate of West Point, class of 1941, to perform all these tasks. Fowler surveyed the nineteen newly converted units and recommended that 1,134 men, approximately 20 percent of those enlisted for the special expansion of the general reserve, be trained in thirty-seven courses of instruction--an increase of 103 black spaces in these courses. Examining worldwide Army strength to determine deficiencies in school-trained specialties in black units, he recommended a total increase of 172 spaces in another thirty-seven courses. Studying the organizational tables of more than two hundred military bases, Fowler recommended that black school quotas for another eleven military occupational specialties, for which there were currently no black quotas, be set at thirty-nine spaces.
On the basis of these recommendations, the Army increased the number of courses with quotas for Negroes from 30 to 62; black quotas were increased in 14 courses; 16 others remained unchanged or their black quotas were slightly decreased. New courses were opened to Negroes in the Adjutant General's School, the airborne section of the (p. 202) Infantry School, and the Artillery, Armored, Engineer, Medical, Military Police, Ordnance, Quartermaster, Signal, and Transportation schools. Courses with increased quotas were in Transportation, Quartermaster, Ordnance, and Engineer schools.[7-101] The number of black soldiers in courses open to recruits quickly grew from 5 to 13.7 percent of total enrollment, and the number of courses open to Negroes rose from 30 to 48 percent of all the entry courses in the Army school system.
[Footnote 7-101: Memo, Chief, Morale, and Welfare Br, P&A, for Chief, Mil Pers Mgt Gp, P&A, 27 Feb 48, sub: School Input Quotas for Enlisted Personnel From the Replacement Stream (other than Air), CSGPA 291.2.]
The Quota System: An Assessment
The conversion of nineteen units from white to black in December 1947, the procurement of 6,000 Negroes to man these units, and the increases in black quotas for the Army schools to train specialists for these and other black units worldwide marked the high point of the Army's attempt to broaden the employment of Negroes under the terms of the Gillem Board policy. As Paul well knew, the training of black troops was linked to their placement and until the great expansion of the Army in 1950 for the Korean War no other units were converted from white to black. The increase in black combat units and the spread in the range of military occupations for black troops, therefore, were never achieved as planned. The interval between wars ended just as it began with the majority of white soldiers serving in combat or administrative units and the majority of black soldiers continuing to work in service or combat support units.[7-102]
[Footnote 7-102: Memo, Brig Gen J. J. O'Hare, Dep Dir, P&A, for SA, 9 Mar 48, sub: Implementation of WD Circular 124, CSGPA 291.2.]
The Personnel and Organization Division made no further requests for increased school quotas for Negroes, and even those increases already approved were short-lived. As soon as the needs of the converted units were met, the school quotas for Negroes were reduced to a level sufficient to fill the replacement needs of the black units. By March 1949, spaces for black students in the replacement stream courses had declined from the 237 recommended by Major Fowler to eighty-two; the number of replacement stream courses open to Negroes fell from 48 percent of all courses offered to 19.8 percent. Fowler had expected to follow up his study of school quotas in the Military Police, Signal Corps, and Medical Corps with surveys of other schools figuring in the Career Guidance Program, but since no additional overhead positions were ever converted from white to black, no further need existed for school quota studies. The three-point study suggested by Paul to find ways to increase school quotas for Negroes was never made.
The War Department's problems with its segregation policy were only intensified by its insistence on maintaining a racial quota. Whatever the authors' intention, the quota was publicized as a guarantee of black participation. In practice it not only restricted the number of Negroes in the Army but also limited the number and variety of (p. 203) black units that could be formed and consequently the number and variety of jobs available to Negroes. Further, it restricted the openings for Negroes in the Army's training schools.
At the same time, enlistment policies combined with Selective Service regulations to make it difficult for the Army to produce from its black quota enough men with the potential to be trained in those skills required by a variety of units. Attracted by the superior economic status promised by the Army, the average black soldier continued to reenlist, thus blocking the enlistment of potential military leaders from the increasing number of educated black youths. This left the Army with a mass of black soldiers long in service but too old to fight, learn new techniques, or provide leadership for the future. Subject to charges of discrimination, the Army only fitfully and for limited periods tried to eliminate low scorers to make room for more qualified men. Yet to the extent to which it failed to attract educated Negroes and provide them with modern military skills, it failed to perform a principal function of the peacetime Army, that of preparing a cadre of leaders for future wars.
In discussing the problem of low-scoring Negroes it should be remembered that the Army General Classification Test, universally accepted in the armed services as an objective device to measure ability, has been seriously questioned by some manpower experts. (p. 204) Since World War II, for example, educational psychologists have learned that ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds have an important influence on performance in general testing. Davenport, who eventually became a senior manpower official in the Department of Defense has, for one, concluded that the test scores created a distorted picture of the mental ability of the black soldier. He has also questioned the fairness of the Army testing system, charging that uniform time periods were not always provided for black and white recruits taking the tests and that this injustice was only one of several inequalities of test administration that might have contributed to the substantial differences in the scores of applicants.[7-103]
[Footnote 7-103: Ltr, Roy K. Davenport to author, 11 Dec 71, CMH files. Davenport became Deputy Under Secretary of the Army and later Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Manpower Planning and Research) in the Johnson administration.]
The accuracy of test scores can be ignored when the subject is viewed from the perspective of manpower utilization. In the five years after World War II, the actual number of white soldiers who scored in the lowest test categories equaled or exceeded the number of black soldiers. The Army had no particular difficulty using these white soldiers to advantage, and in fact refused to discharge all Class V men in 1946. Segregation was the heart of the matter; the less gifted whites could be scattered throughout the Army but the less gifted blacks were concentrated in the segregated black units.
Reversing the coin, what could the Army do with the highly qualified black soldier? His technical skills were unneeded in the limited number and variety of black units; he was barred from white units. In an attempt to deal with this problem, the Gillem policy directed that Negroes with special skills or qualifications be employed in overhead detachments. Such employment, however, depended in great part on the willingness of commanders to use school-trained Negroes. Many of these officers complained that taking the best qualified Negroes out of black units for assignment to overhead detachments deprived black units of their leaders. Furthermore, overhead units represented so small a part of the whole that they had little effect on the Army's problem.
The racial quota also complicated the postwar reduction in Army strength. Since the strength and composition of the Army was fixed by the defense budget and military planning, the majority of new black soldiers produced by the quota could be organized into units only at the expense of white units already in existence. In light of past performance of black units and in the interests of efficiency and economy, particularly at a time of reduced operating funds and a growing cold war, how could the Army justify converting efficient white units into less capable black units? The same question applied to the formation of composite units. Grouping lower scoring black units with white units, many of the Army staff believed, would lower the efficiency of the whole and complicate the Army's relations with the civilian community. As a result, the black units remained largely separate, limited in number, and tremendously overstrength throughout the postwar period.
Some of these problems, at least, might have been solved had the (p. 205) Army created a special staff group to oversee the new policy, a key proposal of the Gillem Board. The Personnel and Administration Division was primarily interested in individuals, in trying to place qualified Negroes on an individual basis; the Organization and Training Division was primarily concerned with units, in trying to expand the black units to approximate the combat to service ratio of white units. These interests conflicted at times, and with no single agency possessing overriding authority, matters came to an impasse, blocking reform of Army practices. Instead, the staff played a sterile numbers game, seeking to impose a strict ratio everywhere. But it was impossible to have a 10 percent proportion of Negroes in every post, in every area, in every overseas theater; it was equally impossible to have 10 percent in every activity, in every arm and service, in every type of task. Yet wherever the Army failed to organize its black strength by quota, it was open to charges of racial discrimination.
It would be a mistake to overlook the signs of racial progress achieved under the Gillem Board policy. Because of its provisions thousands of Negroes came to serve in the postwar Regular Army, many of them in a host of new assignments and occupations. But if the policy proved a qualified success in terms of numbers, it still failed to gain equal treatment and opportunity for black soldiers, and in the end the racial quotas and diverse racial units better served those who wanted to keep a segregated Army.
8. (p. 206)
Segregation's Consequences
The Army staff had to overcome tremendous obstacles in order to carry out even a modest number of the Gillem Board's recommendations. In addition to prejudices the Army shared with much of American society and the institutional inertia that often frustrates change in so large an organization, the staff faced the problem of making efficient soldiers out of a large group of men who were for the most part seriously deficient in education, training, and motivation. To the extent that it overcame these difficulties, the Army's postwar racial policy must be judged successful and, considered in the context of the times, progressive.
Nevertheless, the Gillem Board policy was doomed from the start. Segregation was at the heart of the race problem. Justified as a means of preventing racial trouble, segregation only intensified it by concentrating the less able and poorly motivated. Segregation increased the problems of all commanders concerned and undermined the prestige of black officers. It exacerbated the feelings of the nation's largest minority toward the Army and multiplied demands for change. In the end Circular 124 was abandoned because the Army found it impossible to fight another war under a policy of racial quotas and units. But if the quota had not defeated the policy, other problems attendant on segregation would probably have been sufficient to the task.
Discipline and Morale Among Black Troops
By any measure of discipline and morale, black soldiers as a group posed a serious problem to the Army in the postwar period. The standard military indexes--serious incidents statistics, venereal disease rates, and number of courts-martial--revealed black soldiers in trouble out of all proportion to their percentage of the Army's population. When these personal infractions and crimes were added to the riots and serious racial incidents that continued to occur in the Army all over the world after the war, the dimensions of the problem became clear.
In 1945, when Negroes accounted for 8.5 percent of the Army's average strength, black prisoners entering rehabilitation centers, disciplinary barracks, and federal institutions were 17.3 percent of the Army total. In 1946, when the average black strength had risen (p. 207) to 9.35 percent of the Army's total, 25.9 percent of the soldiers sent to the stockade were Negroes. The following tabulation gives their percentage of all military prisoners by offense:
Negro Military Offenses Percentage
Absent without leave 13.4 Desertion 17.4 Misbehavior before the enemy 1.9 Violation of arrest or confinement 12.6 Discreditable conduct toward superior 49.6
Civil Offenses
Murder 62.2 Rape 53.1 Robbery 33.1 Manslaughter 46.3 Burglary and housebreaking 29.0 Larceny 17.2 Forgery 8.9 Assault 59.0
Source: Correction Branch, TAGO, copy in CMH.
The most common explanation offered for such statistics is that fundamental injustices drove these black servicemen to crime. Probably more to the point, most black soldiers, especially during the early postwar period, served in units burdened with many disadvantaged individuals, soldiers more likely to get into trouble given the characteristically weak leadership in these units. But another explanation for at least some of these crime statistics hinged on commanders' power to define serious offenses. In general, unit commanders had a great deal of discretion in framing the charges brought against an alleged offender; indeed, where some minor offenses were concerned officers could even conclude that a given infraction was not a serious matter at all and simply dismiss the soldier with a verbal reprimand and a warning not to repeat his offense. Whereas one commander might decide that a case called for a charge of aggravated assault, another, faced with the same set of facts, might settle for a charge of simple assault. If it is reasonable to assume that, as a part of the pattern of discrimination, Negroes accused of offenses like misconduct toward superiors, AWOL, and assault often received less generous treatment from their officers than white servicemen, then it is reasonable to suspect that statistics on Negroes involved in crime may reflect such discriminatory treatment.
The crime figures were particularly distressing to the individual black soldier, as indeed they were to his civilian counterpart, because as a member of a highly visible minority he became identified with the wrongdoing of some of his fellows, spectacularly reported in the press, while his own more typical attendance to orders and competent performance of duty were more often buried in the Army's administrative reports. In particular, Negroes among the large overseas commands suffered embarrassment. The Gillem Board policy (p. 208) was announced just as the Army began the occupation of Germany and Japan. As millions of veterans returned home, to be replaced in lesser numbers by volunteers, black troops began to figure prominently in the occupation forces. On 1 January 1947 the Army had 59,795 Negroes stationed overseas, 10.77 percent of the total number of overseas troops, divided principally between the two major overseas commands. By 1 March 1948, in keeping with the general reduction of forces, black strength overseas was reduced to 23,387 men, but black percentages in Europe and the Far East remained practically unchanged.[8-1] It was among these Negroes, scattered throughout Germany and Japan, that most of the disciplinary problems occurred.
[Footnote 8-1: STM-30, Strength of the Army, 1 Jan 47 and 1 Mar 48.]
During the first two years of peace, black soldiers consistently dominated the Army's serious-incident rate, a measure of indictments and accusations involving troops in crimes against persons and property. In June 1946, for example, black soldiers in the European theater were involved in serious incidents (actual and alleged) at the rate of 2.57 cases per 1,000 men. The rate among white soldiers for the same period was .79 cases per 1,000. The rate for both groups rose considerably in 1947. The figure for Negroes climbed to a yearly average of 3.94 incidents per 1,000; the figure for whites, reflecting an even greater gain, reached 1.88. These crime rates were not out of line with America's national crime rate statistics, which, based on a sample of 173 cities, averaged about 3.25 during the same period.[8-2] Nevertheless, the rate was of particular concern to the government because the majority of the civil offenses were perpetuated against German and Japanese nationals and therefore lowered the prestige and effectiveness of the occupation forces.
[Footnote 8-2: Geis Monograph, pp. 138-39 and Chart 4.]
Less important but still a serious internal problem for the Army was a parallel rise in the incidence of venereal disease. Various reasons have been advanced for the great postwar rise in the Army's venereal disease rate. It is obvious, for example, that the rapid conversion from war to peacetime duties gave many American soldiers new leisure and freedom to engage in widespread fraternization with the civilian population. Serious economic dislocation in the conquered countries drove many citizens into a life of prostitution and crime. By the same token, the breakdown of public health services had removed a major obstacle to the spread of social disease. But whatever the reasons, a high rate of venereal disease--the overseas rate was three times greater than the rate reported for soldiers in the United States--reflected a serious breakdown in military discipline, posed a threat to the combat effectiveness of the commands, and produced lurid rumors and reports on Army morality.
As in the case of crime statistics, the rate of venereal disease for black soldiers in the overseas commands far exceeded the figure for whites. The Eighth Army, the major unit in the Far East, reported for the month of June 1946 1,263 cases of venereal disease for whites, or 139 cases per 1,000 men per year; 769 cases were reported for Negroes, or 1,186 cases per 1,000 men per year. The rates for the European (p. 209) Command for July 1946 stood at 806 cases per 1,000 Negroes per year as compared with 203 for white soldiers. The disease rate improved considerably during 1947 in both commands, but still the rates for black troops averaged 354 per 1,000 men per year in Eighth Army compared to 89 for whites. In Europe the rate was 663 per 1,000 men per year for Negroes compared to 172 for whites. At the same time the rate for all soldiers in the United States was 58 per 1,000 per year.[8-3] Some critics question the accuracy of these statistics, charging that more white soldiers, with informal access to medical treatment, were able to escape detection by the Medical Department's statisticians, at least in cases of more easily treated strains of venereal disease.
[Footnote 8-3: Ibid., pp. 138-39; Eighth Army (AFPAC) Hist Div, _Occupational Monograph of the Eighth Army in Japan_ (hereafter AFPAC Monograph), 3:171.]
The court-martial rate for black soldiers serving overseas was also higher than for white soldiers. Black soldiers in Europe, for example, were court-martialed at the rate of 3.48 men per 1,000 during the third quarter of 1946 compared with a 1.14 rate for whites. A similar situation existed in the Far East where the black service units had a monthly court-martial rate nearly double the average rate of the Eighth Army as a whole.[8-4]
[Footnote 8-4: Geis Monograph; AFPAC Monograph, 3:87-88 and charts, 4:91-97 and JAG Illus. No. 3. It should be noted that on occasion individual white units registered disciplinary rates spectacularly higher than these averages. In a nine-month period in 1946-47, for example, a 120-man white unit stationed in Vienna, Austria, had 10 general courts-martial, between 30 and 40 special and summary courts-martial, and 40 of its members separated under the provisions of AR 368-369.]
The disproportionate black crime and disease rates were symptomatic of a condition that also revealed itself in the racially oriented riots and disturbances that continued to plague the postwar Army. Sometimes black soldiers were merely reacting to blatant discrimination countenanced by their officers, to racial insults, and at times even to physical assaults, but nevertheless they reacted violently and in numbers. The resulting incidents prompted investigations, recriminations, and publicity.
Two such disturbances, more spectacular than the typical flare-up, and important because they influenced Army attitudes toward blacks, occurred at Army bases in the United States. The first was a mutiny at MacDill Airfield, Florida, which began on 27 October 1946 at a dance for black noncommissioned officers to which privates were denied admittance. Military police were called when a fight broke out among the black enlisted men and rapidly developed into a belligerent demonstration by a crowd that soon reached mob proportions. Police fire was answered by members of the mob and one policeman and one rioter were wounded. Urged on by its ringleaders, the mob then overwhelmed the main gate area and disarmed the sentries. The rioters retained control of the area until early the next day, when the commanding general persuaded them to disband. Eleven Negroes were charged with mutiny.[8-5] A second incident, a riot with strong racial overtones, occurred at Fort Leavenworth in May 1947 following an altercation between white and black prisoners in the Army Disciplinary Barracks. The rioting, caused by allegations of favoritism (p. 210) accorded to prisoners, lasted for two days; one man was killed and six were injured.[8-6]
[Footnote 8-5: "History of MacDill Army Airfield, 326th AAB Unit, October 1946," pp. 10-11, AFCHO files.]
[Footnote 8-6: Florence Murray, ed., The Negro Handbook, 1949 (New York: Macmillan, 1949), pp. 109-10.]
Disturbances in overseas commands, although less serious, were of deep concern to the Army because of the international complications. In April 1946, for example, soldiers of the 449th Signal Construction Detachment threw stones at two French officers who were driving through the village of Weyersbusch in the Rhine Palatinate. The officers, one of them injured, returned to the village with French MP's and requested an explanation of the incident. They were quickly surrounded by about thirty armed Negroes of the detachment who, according to the French, acted in an aggressive and menacing manner. As a result, the Supreme French Commander in Germany requested his American counterpart to remove all black troops from the French zone. The U.S. commander in Europe, General Joseph T. McNarney, investigated the incident, court-martialed its instigators, and transferred the entire detachment out of the French zone. At the same time his staff explained to the French that to prohibit the stationing of Negroes in the area would be discriminatory and contrary to Army policy. Black specialists continued to operate in the French zone, although none were subsequently stationed there permanently.[8-7]
[Footnote 8-7: Geis Monograph, pp. 145-47.]
The Far East Command also suffered racial incidents. The Eighth Army reported in 1946 that "racial agitation" was one of the primary causes of assault, the most frequent violent crime among American troops in Japan. This racial agitation was usually limited to the American community, however, and seldom involved the civilian population.[8-8]
[Footnote 8-8: AFPAC Monograph, 2:176.]
The task of maintaining a biracial Army overseas in peacetime was marked with embarrassing incidents and time-consuming investigations. The Army was constantly hearing about its racial problems overseas and getting no end of advice. For example, in May 1946 Louis Lautier, chief of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association news service, informed the Assistant Secretary of War that fifty-five of the seventy American soldiers executed for crimes in the European theater were black. Most were category IV and V men. "In light of this fact," Lautier charged, "the blame for the comparatively high rate of crime among black soldiers belongs to the American educational system."[8-9]
[Footnote 8-9: Ltr, Louis R. Lautier to Howard C. Petersen, 28 May 46. ASW 291.2 (NT).]
But when a delegation of publishers from Lautier's organization toured European installations during the same period, the members took a more comprehensive look at the Seventh Army's race problems. They told Secretary Patterson that they found all American soldiers reacting similarly to poor leadership, substandard living conditions, and menial occupations whenever such conditions existed. Although they professed to see no difference in the conduct of white and black troops, they went on to list factors that contributed to the bad conduct of some of the black troops including the dearth of black officers, hostility of military police, inadequate recreation, and poor camp location. They also pointed out that many soldiers in the occupation had been shipped overseas without basic training, (p. 211) scored low in the classification tests, and served under young and inexperienced noncoms. Many black regulars, on the other hand, once proud members of combat units, now found themselves performing menial tasks in the backwaters of the occupation. Above all, the publishers witnessed widespread racial discrimination, a condition that followed inevitably, they believed, from the Army's segregation policy. Conditions in the Army appeared to them to facilitate an immediate shift to integration; conditions in Europe and elsewhere made such a shift imperative. Yet they found most commanders in Europe still unaware of the Gillem Board Report and its liberalizing provisions, and little being done to encourage within the Army the sensitivity to racial matters that makes life in a biracial society bearable. Until the recommendations of the board were carried out and discrimination stopped, they warned the secretary, the Army must expect racial flare-ups to continue.[8-10]
[Footnote 8-10: Frank L. Stanley, Report of the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association to the Honorable Secretary of War on Troops and Conditions in Europe, 18 Jul 46, copy in CMH.]
Characteristically, the Secretary of War's civilian aide, Marcus Ray, never denied evidence of misconduct among black troops, but concentrated instead on finding the cause. Returning from a month's tour of Pacific installations in September 1946, he bluntly pointed out to Secretary Patterson that high venereal disease and court-martial rates among black troops were "in direct proportion to the high percentage of Class IV and Vs among the Negro personnel." Given Ray's conclusion, the solution was relatively simple: the Army should "vigorously implement" its recently promulgated policy, long supported by Ray, and discharge persons with test scores of less than seventy.[8-11]
[Footnote 8-11: Ray, Rpt of Tour of Pacific Installations to SW Patterson, 7 Aug-6 Sep 46, ASW 291.2.]
The civilian aide was not insensitive to the effects of segregation on black soldiers, but he stressed the practical results of the Army's policy instead of making a sweeping indictment of segregation. For example, he criticized the report of the noted criminologist, Leonard Keeler, who had recently studied the criminal activities of American troops in Europe for the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. Ray was critical, not because Keeler had been particularly concerned with the relatively high black crime rate and its effect on Europeans, but because the report overlooked the concentration of segregated black units which had increased the density of Negroes in some areas of Europe to a point where records and reports of misconduct presented a false picture. In effect, black crime statistics were meaningless, Ray believed, as long as the Army's segregation policy remained intact. Where Keeler implied that the solution was to exclude Negroes from Europe, Ray believed that the answer lay in desegregating and spreading them out.[8-12]
[Footnote 8-12: Memo, Ray for ASW Petersen, 1 Nov 46, ASW 291.2.]
It was probably inevitable that all the publicity given racial troubles would attract attention on Capitol Hill. When the Senate's Special Investigations Committee took up the question of military government in occupied Europe in the fall of 1946, it decided to look into the conduct of black soldiers also. Witnesses asserted that black troops in Europe were ill-behaved and poorly disciplined and their (p. 212) officers were afraid to punish them properly for fear of displeasing higher authorities. The committee received a report on the occupation prepared by its chief counsel, George Meader. A curious amalgam of sensational hearsay, obvious racism, and unimpeachable fact, the document was leaked to the press and subsequently denounced publicly by the committee's chairman, Senator Harley M. Kilgore of West Virginia. Kilgore charged that parts of the report dealing with Negroes were obviously based on hearsay. "Neither prejudice nor malice," the senator concluded, "has any place in factual reports."[8-13]
[Footnote 8-13: U.S. Congress, Senate Special Committee Investigating National Defense Programs, Part 42, "Military Government in Germany," 80th Cong., 22 November 1946, pp. 26150-89; see also New York Times, November 27 and December 4, 1946. The quotation is from the Times of November 27th.]
Although the committee's staff certainly had displayed remarkable insensitivity, Meader's recommendations appeared temperate enough. He wanted the committee to explore with the War Department possible solutions to the problem of black troops overseas, and he called on the War Department to give careful consideration to the recommendations of its field commanders. The European commander was already on record with a recommendation to recall all black troops from Europe, citing the absence of Negroes from the U.S. Occupation Army in the Rhineland after World War I. Lt. Gen. Lucius D. Clay, then U.S. Commander, Berlin, who later succeeded General McNarney as theater commander and military governor, wanted Negroes in the occupation army used primarily as parade troops. Meader contended that the War Department was reluctant to act on these theater recommendations because it feared political repercussions from the black community. He had no such fear: "certainly, the conduct of the negro troops, as provable from War Department records, is no credit to the negro race and proper action to solve the problem should not result in any unfavorable reaction from any intelligent negro leaders."[8-14]
[Footnote 8-14: Senate Special Committee, "Military Government in Germany," 80th Cong., 22 Nov 1946, pp. 26163-64; see also Geis Monograph, pp. 142-43.]
The War Department was not insensitive to the opinions being aired on Capitol Hill. The under secretary, Kenneth C. Royall, had already dispatched a group from the Inspector General's office under Brig. Gen. Elliot D. Cooke to find out among other things if black troops were being properly disciplined and to investigate other charges Lt. Col. Francis P. Miller had made before the Special Investigations Committee. Examining in detail the records of one subordinate European command, which had 12,000 Negroes in its force of 44,000, the Cooke group decided that commanders were not afraid to punish black soldiers. Although Negroes were responsible for vehicle accidents and disciplinary infractions in numbers disproportionate to their strength, they also had a proportionately higher court-martial rate.[8-15]
[Footnote 8-15: Geis Monograph, pp. 144-45; EUCOM Hist Div, _Morale and Discipline in the European Command, 1945-1949_, Occupation Forces in Europe Series, pp. 45-46, in CMH.]
While the Cooke group was still studying the specific charges of the Senate's Investigations Committee, Secretary Patterson decided on a general review of the situation. He ordered Ray to tour European installations and report on how the Gillem Board policy was being (p. 213) put into effect overseas. Ray visited numerous bases and housing and recreation areas in Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland, and Austria. He examined duties, living conditions, morale, and discipline. He also looked into race relations and community attitudes. His month's tour, ending on 17 December 1946, reinforced his conviction that substandard troops--black and white--were at the heart of the Army's crime and venereal disease problem. Ray supported the efforts of local commanders to discharge these men, although he wanted the secretary to reform and standardize the method of discharge. In his analysis of the overseas situation, the civilian aide avoided any specific allusion to the nexus between segregation and racial unrest. In a rare burst of idealism, however, he did condemn those who would exclude Negroes from combat units and certain occupations because of presumed prejudices on the part of the German population. To bow to such prejudices, he insisted, was to negate America's aspirations for the postwar world. In essence, Ray's formula for good race relations was quite simple: institute immediately the reforms outlined in the Gillem Board Report.
In addition to broader use of black troops, Ray was concerned with basic racial attitudes. The Army, he charged, generally failed to see the connection between prejudice and national security; many of its leaders even denied that prejudice existed in the Army. Yet to ignore the problem of racial prejudice, he claimed, condemned the Army to perpetual racial upsets. He wanted the secretary to restate the Army's racial objectives and launch an information and education program to inform commanders and troops on racial matters.[8-16]
[Footnote 8-16: Ray, "Rpt to SecWar, Mr. Robert P. Patterson, of Tour of European Installations," 17 Dec 46, Incl to Memo, SW for DCofS, 7 Jan 47, SW 291.2.]
In all other respects a lucid progress report on the Gillem Board policy, Ray's analysis was weakened by his failure to point out the effect of segregation on the performance and attitude of black soldiers. Ray believed that the Gillem Board policy, with its quota system and its provisions for the integration of black specialists, would eventually lead to an integrated Army. Preoccupied with practical and imminently possible racial reforms, Ray, along with Secretary Patterson and other reformers within the Army establishment, tended to overlook the tenacious hold that racial segregation had on Army thought.
This hold was clearly illustrated by the reaction of the Army staff to Ray's recommendations. Speaking with the concurrence of the other staff elements and the approval of the Deputy Chief of Staff, General Paul warned that very little could be accomplished toward the long-range objective of the Gillem Board--integration--until the Army completed the long and complex task of raising the quality and lowering the quantity of black soldiers. He also considered it impractical to use Negroes in overhead positions, combat units, and highly technical and professional positions in exact proportion to their percentage of the population. Such use, Paul claimed, would expend travel funds already drastically curtailed and further complicate a serious housing situation. He admitted that the deep-seated prejudice of some Army members in all grades would (p. 214) have a direct bearing on the progress of the Army's new racial policy.
The staff generally agreed with Ray's other recommendations with one exception: it opposed his suggestion that black units be used in the European theater's constabulary, the specially organized and trained force that patrolled the East-West border and helped police the German occupation. The theater commander had so few capable Negroes, Paul reasoned, that to siphon off enough to form a constabulary unit would threaten the efficiency of other black units. Besides, even if enough qualified Negroes were available, he believed their use in supervisory positions over German nationals would be unacceptable to many Germans.[8-17] The staff offered no evidence for this latter argument, and indeed there was none available. In marked contrast to their reaction to the French government's quartering of Senegalese soldiers in the Rhineland after World War I, the German attitude toward American Negroes immediately after World War II was notably tolerant, a factor in the popularity among Negroes of assignments to Europe. It was only later that the Germans, especially tavern owners and the (p. 215) like, began to adopt the discriminatory practices of their conquerors.[8-18]
[Footnote 8-17: WDGPA Summary Sheet, 25 Jan 47, sub: Utilization of Negroes in the European Theater, with Incls, WDGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 47).]
[Footnote 8-18: Interv, author with Lt Gen Clarence R. Huebner (former CG, U.S. Army, Europe), 31 Mar 71, CMH files.]
Ray's proposals and the reaction to them formed a kind of watershed in the War Department's postwar racial policy. Just ten months after the Gillem Board Report was published, the Army staff made a judgment on the policy's effectiveness: the presence of Negroes in numbers approximating 10 percent of the Army's strength and at the current qualitative level made it necessary to retain segregation indefinitely. Segregation kept possible troublemakers out of important combat divisions, promoted efficiency, and placated regional prejudices both in the Army and Congress. Integration must be postponed until the number of Negroes in the Army was carefully regulated and the quality of black troops improved. Both, the staff thought, were goals of a future so distant that segregated units were not threatened.
But the staff's views ran contrary to the Gillem Board policy and the public utterances of the Secretary of War. Robert Patterson had consistently supported the policy in public and before his advisers. Besides, it was unthinkable that he would so quickly abandon a policy developed at the cost of so much effort and negotiation and announced with such fanfare. He had insisted that the quota be maintained, most recently in the case of the European Command.[8-19] In sum, he believed that the policy provided guidelines, practical and expedient, albeit temporary, that would lead to the integration of the Army.
[Footnote 8-19: Geis Monograph, pp. 143-44.]
In face of this impasse between the secretary and the Army staff there slowly evolved what proved to be a new racial policy. Never clearly formulated--Circular 124 continued in effect with only minor changes until 1950--the new policy was based on the substantially different proposition that segregation would continue indefinitely while the staff concentrated on weeding out poorly qualified Negroes, upgrading the rest, and removing vestiges of discrimination, which it saw as quite distinct from segregation. At the same time the Army would continue to operate under a strict 10 percent quota of Negroes, though not necessarily within every occupation or specialty. The staff overlooked the increasingly evident connection between segregation and racial unrest, thereby assuring the continuation of both. From 1947 on, integration, the stated goal of the Gillem Board policy, was ignored, while segregation, which the board saw as an expedient to be tolerated, became for the Army staff a way of life to be treasured. It was from this period in 1947 that Circular 124 and the Gillem Board Report began to gain their reputations as regressive documents.
Improving the Status of the Segregated Soldier
In 1947 the Army accelerated its long-range program to discharge soldiers who scored less than seventy on the Army General Classification Test. Often a subject of public controversy, the program formed a major part of the Army's effort to close the (p. 216) educational and training gap between black and white troops.[8-20] Of course, there were other ways to close the gap, and on occasion the Army had taken the more positive and difficult approach of upgrading its substandard black troops by giving them extra training. Although rarely so recognized, the Army's long record of providing remedial academic and technical training easily qualified it as one of the nation's major social engineers.
[Footnote 8-20: For the use of AR 315-369 to discharge low-scoring soldiers, see Chapter 7.]
In World War II thousands of draftees were taught to read and write in the Army's literacy program. In 1946 at Fort Benning an on-duty educational program was organized in the 25th Regimental Combat Team for soldiers, in this case all Negroes, with less than an eighth grade education. Although the project had to be curtailed because of a lack of specialized instructors, an even more ambitious program was launched the next year throughout the Army after a survey revealed an alarming illiteracy rate in replacement troops. In a move of primary importance to black recruits, the Far East Command, for example, ordered all soldiers lacking the equivalent of a fifth grade education to attend courses. The order was later changed to include all soldiers who failed to achieve Army test scores of seventy.[8-21]
[Footnote 8-21: AFPAC Monograph, 4:193.]
In 1947 the European theater launched the most ambitious project by far for improving the status of black troops, and before it was over thousands of black soldiers had been examined, counseled, and trained. The project was conceived and executed by the deputy and later theater commander, Lt. Gen. Clarence R. Huebner, and his adviser on Negro affairs, Marcus Ray, now a lieutenant colonel.[8-22] These men were convinced that a program could be devised to raise the status of the black soldier. Huebner wanted to lay the foundation for a command-wide educational program for all black units. "If you're going to make soldiers out of people," he later explained, "they have the right to be trained." Huebner had specialized in training in his Army career, had written several of the Army's training manuals, and possessed an abiding faith in the ability of the Army to change men. "If your (p. 217) soldiers don't know how, teach them."[8-23]
[Footnote 8-22: At the suggestion of Secretary Patterson, General Huebner established the position of Negro adviser. After several candidates were considered, the post went to Marcus Ray, who left the secretary's office and went on active duty.]
[Footnote 8-23: Interv, author with Huebner.]
General Huebner got his chance in March 1947 when the command decided to use some 3,000 unassigned black troops in guard duties formerly performed by the 1st Infantry Division. The men were organized into two infantry battalions,[8-24] but because of their low test scores Huebner decided to establish a twelve-to thirteen-week training program at the Grafenwohr Training Center and directed the commanding general of the 1st Division to train black soldiers in both basic military and academic subjects. Huebner concluded his directive by saying:
This is our first opportunity to put into effect in a large way the War Department policy on Negro soldiers as announced in War Department Circular No. 124, 1946. Owing to the necessity for rapid training, and to the press of occupational duties, little time has been available in the past for developing the leadership of the Negro soldier. We can now do that.... I wish you to study the program, its progress, its deficiencies and its advantages, in order that a full report may be compiled and lessons in operation and training drawn.[8-25]
[Footnote 8-24: The 370th and 371st Infantry Battalions (Separate) were organized on 20 June 1947. The men came from EUCOM's inactivated engineer service battalions and construction companies, ambulance companies, and ordnance ammunition, quartermaster railhead, signal heavy construction, and transportation corps car companies; see Geis Monograph, p. 80.]
[Footnote 8-25: Ltr, CG, Ground and Service Forces, Europe, to CG, 1st Inf Div, 1 May 47, sub: Training of Negro Infantry Battalions, quoted in Geis Monograph, pp. 113-14.]
As the improved military bearing and efficiency of black trainees and the subsequent impressive performance of the two new infantry battalions would suggest, the reports on the Grafenwohr training were optimistic and the lessons drawn ambitious. They prompted Huebner on 1 December 1947 to establish a permanent training center at Kitzingen Air Base.[8-26] Essentially, he was trying to combine both drill and constant supervision with a broad-based educational program. Trainees received basic military training for six hours daily and academic instruction up to the twelfth grade level for two hours more. The command ordered all black replacements and casuals arriving from the United States to the training center for classifying and training as required. Eventually all black units in Europe were to be rotated through Kitzingen for unit refresher and individual instruction. As each company completed the course at Kitzingen, the command assigned academic instructors to continue an on-duty educational program in the field. A soldier was required to participate in the educational program until he passed the general education development test for high school level or until he clearly demonstrated that he could not profit from further instruction.
[Footnote 8-26: The training center had already moved from Grafenwohr to larger quarters at Mannheim Koafestal, Germany.]
Washington was quick to perceive the merit of the European program, and Paul reported widespread approval "from all concerned."[8-27] The program quickly produced some impressive statistics. Thousands of (p. 218) soldiers--at the peak in 1950 more than 62 percent of all Negroes in the command--were enrolled in the military training course at Kitzingen or in on-duty educational programs organized in over two-thirds of the black companies throughout the command. By June 1950 the program had over 2,900 students and 200 instructors. A year later, the European commander estimated that since the program began some 1,169 Negroes had completed fifth grade in his schools, 2,150 had finished grade school, and 418 had passed the high school equivalency test.[8-28] The experiment had a practical and long-lasting effect on the Army. For example, in 1950 a sampling of three black units showed that after undergoing training at Kitzingen and in their own units the men scored an average of twenty points higher in Army classification tests. According to a 1950 European Command estimate, the command's education program was producing some of the finest trained black troops in the Army.
[Footnote 8-27: Ltr, D/P&A to Huebner, 15 Oct 47, CSGPA 291.2. This approval did not extend to all civil rights advocates, some of whom objected to the segregated training. Walter White, however, supported the program. See Interv, author with Huebner.]
[Footnote 8-28: EUCOM Hist Div, _EUCOM Command Report, 1951_, pp. 128, 251, copy in CMH.]
The training program even provoked jealous reaction among some white troops who claimed that the educational opportunities offered Negroes discriminated against them. They were right, for in comparison to the on-duty high school courses offered Negroes, the command restricted courses for white soldiers to so-called literacy training or completion of the fifth grade. Command spokesmen quite openly justified the disparity on the grounds that Negroes on the whole (p. 219) had received fewer educational opportunities in the United States and that the program would promote efficiency in the command.[8-29]
[Footnote 8-29: Ltr, Chief, EUCOM TI&E Div, to EUCOM DCSOPS, 18 Jun 48, cited in Geis Monograph, p. 130.]
Whether a connection can be made between the Kitzingen training program and improvement in the morale and discipline of black troops, the fact was that by January 1950 a dramatic change had occurred in the conduct of black soldiers in the European Command. The rate of venereal disease among black soldiers had dropped to an average approximating the rate for white troops (and not much greater than the always lower average for troops in the United States). This phenomenon was repeated in the serious incident rate. In the first half of 1950 courts-martial that resulted in bad conduct discharges totaled fifty-nine for Negroes, a figure that compared well with the 324 similar verdicts for the larger contingent of white soldiers.[8-30] For once the Army could document what it had always preached, that education and training were the keys to the better performance of black troops. The tragedy was that the education program was never applied throughout the Army, not even in the Far East and in the United States, where far more black soldiers were stationed than in Europe.[8-31] The Army lost yet another chance to fulfill the promise of its postwar policy.
[Footnote 8-30: Geis Monograph, Charts 3 and 4 and p. 139.]
[Footnote 8-31: Not comparable was the brief literacy program reinstituted in the 25th Regimental Combat Team at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 1947.]
In later years Kitzingen assumed the task of training black officers, a natural progression considering the attitude of General Huebner and Marcus Ray. The general and the command adviser were convinced that the status of black soldiers depended at least in part on the caliber of black officers commanding them. Huebner deftly made this point in October 1947 soon after Kitzingen opened when he explained to General Paul that he wanted more "stable, efficient, and interested Negro officers and senior non-commissioned officers" who, he believed, would set an example for the trainees.[8-32] Others shared Huebner's views. The black publishers touring Europe some months later observed that wherever black officers were assigned there was "a noticeable improvement in the morale, discipline and general efficiency of the units involved."[8-33]
[Footnote 8-32: Ltr, Huebner to D/P&A, 1 Oct 47, CSGPA 291.2.]
[Footnote 8-33: Memo, DCofS for D/P&A, 14 May 48, sub: Report of Visit by Negro Publishers and Editors to the European Theater, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48).]
The European Command had requisitioned only five black officers during the last eight months, General Paul noted; this might have caused its shortage of black officers. Still, Paul knew the problem went deeper, and he admitted that many black officers now on duty were relatively undesirable and many desirable ones were being declared surplus. He was searching for a solution.[8-34] The Personnel and Administration Division could do very little about the major cause of the shortage, for the lack of black officers was fundamentally connected with the postwar demobilization affecting all the services. Most black officers were unable to compete in terms of length of service, combat experience, and other factors that counted heavily toward retention. (p. 220) Consequently their numbers dropped sharply from an August 1945 high of 7,748 to a December 1947 low of 1,184. The drop more than offset the slight rise in the black percentage of the whole officer corps, .8 percent in 1945 to 1.0 percent in 1947.
[Footnote 8-34: Ltr, D/P&A to Huebner, 15 Oct 47, CSGPA 291.2.]
At first General Paul was rather passive in his attitude toward the shortage of black officers. Commenting on Assistant Secretary of War Petersen's suggestion in May 1946 that the Army institute a special recruitment program to supplement the small number of black officers who survived the competition for Regular Army appointments, Paul noted that all appointments were based on merit and competition and that special consideration for Negroes was itself a form of discrimination.[8-35] Whether through fear of being accused of discrimination against whites or because of the general curtailment of officer billets, it was not until April 1948 that the Personnel and Administration Division launched a major effort to get more black officers.
[Footnote 8-35: Memo, ASW for D/P&A, 23 May 46, sub: Negro Officers in the Regular Establishment; Memo, D/P&A for ASW, 29 May 46, same sub; Memo, "D. R." (Exec Asst to ASW, Lt Col D. J. Rogers) for Petersen, 12 Jun 46. Copies of all in ASW 291.2 (23 May 46).]
In April 1948 General Paul had his Manpower Control Group review the officer strength of seventy-eight black units stationed in the United States. The group uncovered a shortage of seventy-two officers in the seventy-eight units, but it went considerably beyond identifying simple shortages. In estimating the number of black officers needed, the group demonstrated not only how far the Gillem Board policy had committed the Army, but in view of contemporary manpower shortages just how impossible this commitment was of being fulfilled. The manpower group discovered that according to Circular 124, which prescribed more officers for units containing a preponderance of men with low test scores, the seventy-eight units should have 187 additional officers beyond their regular allotment. Also taking into account Circular 124's provision that black officers should command black troops, the group discovered that these units would need another 477 black officer replacements. The group temporized. It recommended that the additional officers be assigned to units in which 70 percent or more of the men were in grades IV and V and without mentioning specific numbers noted that high priority be given to the replacement of white officers with Negroes. Assuming the shortages discovered in the seventy-eight units would be mirrored in the 315 black units overseas as well as other temporary units at home, the group also wanted General Paul to order a comprehensive survey of all black units.[8-36]
[Footnote 8-36: Memo, Chief, Manpower Survey Gp, for Paul, 29 Apr 48, sub: Assignment of Officers of Negro T/O&E Units in Compliance with WD Cir 124, 1946, CSGPA 210.31 (29 Apr 48); "Report on Negro Officer Strength in Army," incl w/Memo, D/P&A for DCofS, 21 Jun 48, sub: Report of Negro Publishers and Editors on Tour of European Installations, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48).]
Paul complied with the group's request by ordering the major commanders in May to list the number of officers by branch, grade, and specialty needed to fill the vacant spaces in their black units.[8-37] But there was really little need for further surveys because the (p. 221) key to all the group's recommendations--the availability of suitable black officers--was beyond the immediate reach of the Army. General Paul was able to fill the existing vacancies in the seventy-eight continental units by recalling black officers from inactive duty, but the number eligible for recall or available from other sources was limited. As of 31 May 1948, personnel officials could count on only 2,794 black reserve and National Guard officers who could be assigned to extended active duty. This number was far short of current needs; Negroes would have to approximate 4.1 percent (3,000 officers) of the Army's officer corps if all the whites in black units were replaced. As for the other provisions of the Gillem Board, the Organization and Training Division urged restraint, arguing that Circular 124 was not an authorization for officers in excess of organization table ceilings, but rather that the presence of many low-scoring men constituted a basis for requesting more officers.[8-38]
[Footnote 8-37: Memo, D/P&A for TAG, 24 May 48, sub: Negro Officers in TO&E Units, CSGPA 291.2 (24 May 48).]
[Footnote 8-38: Ibid.; "Report on Negro Officer Strength in Army," incl w/Memo, D/P&A for DCofS, 21 Jun 48, sub: Report of Negro Publishers and Editors..., CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48).]
General Paul did not argue the point. Admitting that the 4.1 percent figure was "an objective to be achieved over a period of time," he could do little but instruct the commanders concerned to indicate in future requisitions that they wanted black officers as fillers or replacements in black units. Clearly, as long as the number of black officers remained so low, the provisions of Circular 124 calling for black officers to replace whites or supplement the officer strength of units containing men with low test scores would have to be ignored.
There were other long-range possibilities for procuring more black officers, the most obvious the expansion of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps. As of January 1948 the Army had ROTC units at nine predominantly black colleges and universities with a total enrollment of 3,035 cadets. The Organization and Training Division contemplated adding one more unit during 1948, but after negotiations with officials from Secretary Royall's office, themselves under considerable congressional and public pressure, the division added three more advanced ROTC units, one service and two combat, at predominantly black institutions.[8-39] At the same time some hope existed for increasing the number of black cadets at West Point. The academy had nine black cadets in 1948, including five plebes. General Paul hoped that the graduation of these cadets would stimulate further interest and a corresponding increase in applications from Negroes.[8-40]
[Footnote 8-39: Memo, Asst Secy, GS, for DCofS, 2 Jun 48, sub: Negro ROTC Units, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (2 Jun 48); see also Department of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26 Apr 48, morning session, pp. 31-34, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 8-40: "Report on Negro Officer Strength in Army," incl w/Memo, D/P&A for DCofS, 21 Jun 48, sub: Report of Negro Publishers and Editors..., CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48).]
It was probably naive to assume that an increase of black cadets from four to nine would stir much interest when other statistics suggested that black officers had a limited future in the service. As Secretary Royall pointed out, even if the total number of black officers could not be quickly increased, the percentage of black officers in the (p. 222) Regular Army could.[8-41] Yet by April 1948 the Army had almost completed the conversion of reservists into regulars, and few black officers had been selected. In June 1945, for example, there were 8 black officers in the Regular Army; by April 1948 they numbered only 41, including 4 West Point graduates and 32 converted reservists.[8-42] The Army had also recently nominated 13 young Negroes, designated Distinguished Military Graduates of the advanced ROTC program, for Regular Army commissions.
[Footnote 8-41: Department of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26 Apr 48, morning session, pp. 20-21. Prior to World War II, an officer held a commission in the Regular Army, in the Army Reserve, or in the National Guard. Another type of commission, one in the Army of the United States (AUS), was added during World War II, and all temporary promotions granted during the war were to AUS rank. For example, a Regular Army captain could become an AUS major but would retain his Regular Army captaincy. Many reservists and some National Guard officers remaining on active duty sought conversion to, or "integration" into, the Regular Army for career security.]
[Footnote 8-42: These black officers were converted to Regular Army officers in the following arms and services: Infantry, 13; Chaplain Corps, 9; Medical Service Corps, 1; Army Nurse Corps, 1; Field Artillery, 1; Quartermaster, 7 (4 of whom were transferred later to the Transportation Corps). These figures include the first black doctor and nurse converted to Regular Army officers.]
During the Regular Army integration program, 927 Negroes and 122,520 whites applied for the Regular Army; the Army and the Air Force awarded commissions to 27,798 white officers (22.7 percent of those applying) and 96 black officers (10.3 percent of the applicants). Preliminary rejections based on efficiency and education ran close to 40 percent of the applicants of both races. The disparity in rejections by race appeared when applicants went before the Selection Board itself; only 18.55 percent of the remaining black applicants were accepted while 39.35 percent of the white applicants were selected for Regular Army commissions.[8-43]
[Footnote 8-43: "Analysis of Negro Officers in the Army," incl w/Memo, D/P&A for DCAS, 21 Jun 48, sub: Report of Negro Publishers and Editors..., CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (14 May 48).]
Given statistics like these, it was difficult to stimulate black interest in a career as an Army officer, as General Paul was well aware. He had the distribution of black officers appointed to the Regular Army studied in 1947 to see if it was in consonance with the new racial policy. While most of the arms and services passed muster with the Personnel and Administration Division, Paul felt compelled to remind the Chief of Engineers, whose corps had so far awarded no Regular Army commission to the admittedly limited number of black applicants, that officers were to be accepted in the Regular Army without regard to race. He repeated this warning to the Quartermaster General and the Chief of Transportation; both had accepted black officers for the Regular Army but had selected only the smallest fraction of those applying. Although the black applicants did score slightly below the whites, Paul doubted that integration would lower the standards of quality in these branches, and he wanted every effort made to increase the number of black officers.[8-44]
[Footnote 8-44: DF, D/P&A to Chief of Engrs, 25 Jul 47, sub: Appointment of Negro Officers to the Regular Army, w/attached Memo for Rcd, WDGPA 291.2 (23 Jul 47).]
The Chief of Engineers, quick to defend his record, explained that the race of candidates was difficult to ascertain and had not been considered in the selection process. Nevertheless, he had reexamined all rejected applications and found two from Negroes whose (p. 223) composite scores were acceptable. Both men, however, fell so short of meeting the minimum professional requirements that to appoint either would be to accord preferential treatment denied to hundreds of other underqualified applicants.[8-45] It would appear that bias and prejudice were not the only governing factors in the shortage of black officers, but rather that in some ways at least Circular 124 was making impossible demands on the Army's personnel system.
[Footnote 8-45: DF, Chief of Engrs to D/P&A, 1 Aug 47, sub: Appointment of Negro Officers to the Regular Army, copy in WPGPA 291.2 (23 Jul 47).]
Discrimination and the Postwar Army
Training black soldiers and trying to provide them with black officers was a practical move demanded by the Army's new race policy. At the same time, often with reluctance and only after considerable pressure had been brought to bear, the Army also began to attack certain practices that discriminated against the black soldier. One was the arbitrary location of training camps after the war. In November 1946, for example, the Army Ground Forces reorganized its training centers for the Army, placing them at six installations: Fort Dix, New Jersey; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Fort Knox, Kentucky; Fort Jackson, South Carolina; Fort Lewis, Washington, and Fort Ord, California. White enlisted and reenlisted men were sent to the training centers within the geographical limits of the Army area of their enlistment. Because it was impossible for the Army Ground Forces to maintain separate black training cadres of battalion size at each of the six centers, all Negroes, except those slated for service in the Army Air Forces, were sent to Fort Jackson.[8-46]
[Footnote 8-46: WD Memo 615-500-4, 21 Nov 46, sub: Flow of Enlisted Personnel From Induction Centers and Central Examining Stations.]
The Gillem Board had called for the assignment of Negroes to localities where community attitudes were favorable, and Marcus Ray protested the Ground Forces action. "It is in effect a restatement of policy and ... has implications which will affect adversely the relationship of the Army and our Negro manpower potential.... I am certain that this ruling will have the immediate effect of crystallizing Negro objections to the enlistment of qualified men and also Universal Military Training."[8-47]
[Footnote 8-47: Memo, Marcus Ray for ASW, 23 Jan 47, ASW 291.2.]
Ray reminded Assistant Secretary of War Petersen that the Fort Jackson area had been the scene of many racial disturbances since 1941 and that an increase in the black troop population would only intensify the hostile community attitude. He wanted to substitute Fort Dix and Fort Ord for Fort Jackson. He also had another suggestion: Why not assign black training companies to white battalions, especially in those training centers that drew their populations from northern, eastern, and western communities?
Petersen ignored for the time being Ray's suggestion for composite training groups, but he readily agreed on training black soldiers at more congenial posts, particularly after Ray's views were aired in the black press. Petersen also urged the Deputy Chief of Staff to (p. 224) coordinate staff actions with Ray whenever instructions dealing with race relations in the Army were being prepared.[8-48] At the same time, Secretary of War Patterson assured Walter White of the NAACP, who had also protested sending Negroes to Fort Jackson, that the matter was under study.[8-49] Within a matter of months Negroes entering the Army from civilian life were receiving their training at Fort Dix and Fort Ord.
[Footnote 8-48: Memo, ASW for DCofS, 7 Feb 47, ASW 291.2.]
[Footnote 8-49: Ltr, SW Robert P. Patterson to Walter White, 7 Feb 47, SW 291.2.]
Turning its back on the overt racism of some southern communities, the Army unwittingly exposed an example of racism in the west. The plan to train Negroes at Fort Ord aroused the combined opposition of the citizens around Monterey Bay, who complained to Senator William F. Knowland that theirs was a tourist area unable to absorb thousands of black trainees "without serious threat of racial conflict." The Army reacted with forthright resistance. Negroes would be trained at Fort Ord, and the Secretary of the Army would be glad to explain the situation and cooperate with the local citizenry.[8-50]
[Footnote 8-50: Telg, Hugh F. Dormody, Mayor of Monterey, Calif., et al., to Sen. William F. Knowland, 31 Jul 48; Ltr, SA to Sen. Knowland, 16 May 48; both in CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (10 Aug 48).]
On the recommendation of the civilian aide, the Assistant Secretary of War introduced another racial reform in January 1947 that removed racial designations from overseas travel orders and authorizations issued to dependents and War Department civilian employees.[8-51] The order was strongly opposed by some members of the Army staff and had to be repeated by the Secretary of the Army in 1951.[8-52] Branding racial designations on travel orders a "continuous source of embarrassment" to the Army, Secretary Frank Pace, Jr., sought to include all travel orders in the prohibition, but the Army staff persuaded him it was unwise. While the staff agreed that orders involving travel between reception centers and training organizations need not designate race, it convinced the secretary that to abolish such designations on other orders, including overseas assignment documents, would adversely affect strength and accounting procedures as well as overseas replacement systems.[8-53] The modest reform continued in effect until the question of racial designation became a major issue in the 1960's.
[Footnote 8-51: AG Memo for Office of SW et al., 10 Jan 47, sub: Designation of Race on Overseas Travel Orders, AGAO-C 291.2 (6 Jan 47), WDGSP; Memo for Rcd attached to Memo, D/SSP for TAG, 6 Jan 47, same sub, AG 291.2 (6 Jan 47).]
[Footnote 8-52: Memo, SA for CofSA, 2 Apr 52, sub: Racial Designations on Travel Orders, CS 291.2 (2 Apr 51).]
[Footnote 8-53: G-1 Summary Sheet, 26 Apr 52, sub: Racial Designations on Travel Orders; Memo, CofS for SA, 5 May 51, same sub; both in CS 291.2 (2 Apr 51).]
Not all the reforms that followed the Gillem Board's deliberations were so quickly adopted. For in truth the Army was not the monolithic institution so often depicted by its critics, and its racial directives usually came out of compromises between the progressive and traditional factions of the staff. The integration of the national cemeteries, an emotion-laden issue in 1947, amply demonstrated that sharp differences of opinion existed within the department. Although long-standing regulations provided for segregation by rank only, local custom, and in one case--the Long Island National Cemetery--a 1935 order by Secretary of War George H. Dern, dictated racial (p. 225) segregation in most of the cemeteries. The Quartermaster General reviewed the practice in 1946 and recommended a new policy specifically opening new sections of all national cemeteries to eligible citizens of all races. He would leave undisturbed segregated grave sites in the older sections of the cemeteries because integration would "constitute a breach of faith with the next of kin of those now interred."[8-54] As might be expected, General Paul supported the quartermaster suggestion, as did the commander of the Army Ground Forces. The Army Air Forces commander, on the other hand, opposed integrating the cemeteries, as did the Chief of Staff, who on 22 February 1947 rejected the proposal. The existing policy was reconfirmed by the Under Secretary of War three days later, and there the matter rested.[8-55]
[Footnote 8-54: Memo, QMG for DCofS, 15 Apr 47, CSUSA, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 8-55: WDSP Summary Sheet, 22 Jan 47, sub: Staff Study--Segregation of Grave Sites, WDGSP/C3 1894.]
Not for long, for civil rights spokesmen and the black press soon protested. The NAACP confessed itself "astonished" at the Army's decision and demanded that Secretary Patterson change a practice that was both "un-American and un-democratic."[8-56] Marcus Ray predicted that continuing agitation would require further Army action, and he reminded Under Secretary Royall that cemeteries under the jurisdiction of the Navy, Veterans Administration, and Department of the Interior had been integrated with considerable publicity. He urged adoption of the Quartermaster General's recommendation.[8-57] That was enough for Secretary Patterson. On 15 April he directed that the new sections of national cemeteries be integrated.[8-58]
[Footnote 8-56: Telg, Secy Veterans Affairs, NAACP, to SW, attached to Memo, SW for DCofS, 11 Apr 47, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 8-57: Memo, Civilian Aide for USW, 15 Mar 47, sub: Segregation in Grave Site Assignment, copy in CMH.]
[Footnote 8-58: Memo, SW for DCofS, 15 Apr 47, copy in CMH. The secretary's directive was incorporated in the National Cemetery Regulations, August 1947, and Army Regulation 290-5, 2 October 1951.]
It was a hollow victory for the reformers because the traditionalists were able to cling to the secretary's proviso that old sections of the cemeteries be left alone, and the Army continued to gather its dead in segregation and in bitter criticism. Five months after the secretary's directive, the American Legion protested to the Secretary of War over segregation at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery, Minnesota, and in August 1950 the Governor's Interracial Commission of the State of Minnesota carried the matter to the President, calling the policy "a flagrant disregard of human dignity."[8-59] The Army continued to justify segregation as a temporary and limited measure involving the old sections, but a decade after the directive the commander of the Atlanta Depot was still referring to segregation in some cemeteries.[8-60] The controversial practice would drag on into the next decade before the Department of Defense finally ruled that there would be no lines drawn by rank or race in national cemeteries.
[Footnote 8-59: Ltr, Royall to Rep. Edward J. Devitt of Minnesota, 4 Sep 47; Ltr, Clifford Rucker to the President, 9 Aug 50; both in SW 291.2.]
[Footnote 8-60: Ltr, CG, Atlanta Depot, to DQMG, 19 Mar 56, MGME-P. See also Memo, ASA (M&RF) for CofS, 27 Sep 52, sub: Segregation of National Cemeteries; DF, QMF to G-4, 6 Oct 52, same sub; both in CS 687 (27 Sep 52).]
An attempt to educate the rank and file in the Army's racial (p. 226) policy met some opposition in the Army staff. At General Paul's request, the Information and Education Division prepared a pamphlet intended to improve race relations through troop indoctrination.[8-61] Army Talk 170, published on 1 April 1947, was, like its World War II predecessors, Command of Negro Troops and The Negro Soldier, progressive for the times. While it stressed the reforms projected in the Army's policy, including eventual integration, it also clearly defended the Army's continued insistence on segregation on the grounds that segregation promoted interracial harmony. The official position of the service was baldly stated. "The Army is not an instrument of social reform. Its interest in matters of race is confined to considerations of its own effectiveness."
[Footnote 8-61: Memo, D/P&A for CofS, 26 Feb 47, sub: Army Talks on "Utilization of Negro Manpower," WDGPA 291.2 (7 Jan 47).]
Even before publication the pamphlet provoked considerable discussion and soul-searching in the Army staff. The Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Thomas T. Handy, questioned some of the Information and Education Division's claims for black combatants. In the end the matter had to be taken to General Eisenhower for resolution. He ordered publication, reminding local commanders that if necessary they should add further instructions of their own, "in keeping with the local situation" to insure acceptance of the Army's policy. The pamphlet was not to be considered an end in itself, he added, but only one element in a "progressive process toward maximum utilization of manpower in the Army."[8-62]
[Footnote 8-62: WD Cir 76, 22 Mar 47; see also Ltrs, Col David Lane (author of Army Talk 170) to Martin Blumenson, 29 Dec 66, and to author, 15 Mar 71, CMH files.]
Segregation in Theory and Practice
Efforts to carry out the policy set forth in Circular 124 reached a high-water mark in mid-1948. By then black troops, for so long limited to a few job categories, could be found in a majority of military occupational fields. The officer corps was open to all without the restrictions of a racial quota, and while a quota for enlisted men still existed all racial distinctions in standards of enlistment were gone. The Army was replacing white officers in black units with Negroes as fast as qualified black replacements became available. And more were qualifying every day. By 30 June 1948 the Army had almost 1,000 black commissioned officers, 5 warrant officers, and 67 nurses serving with over 65,000 enlisted men and women.[8-63]
[Footnote 8-63: STM-30, Strength of the Army, 1 Jul 48. For an optimistic report on the execution of Circular 124, see _Annual Report of the Secretary of the Army, 1948_ (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1949), pp. 7-8, 83, 94.]
But here, in the eyes of the Army's critics, was the rub: after three years of racial reform segregation not only remained but had been perfected. No longer would the Army be plagued with the vast all-black divisions that had segregated thousands of Negroes in an admittedly inefficient and often embarrassing manner. Instead, Negroes would be segregated in more easily managed hundreds. By limiting (p. 227) integration to the battalion level (the lowest self-sustaining unit in the Army system), the Army could guarantee the separation of the races in eating, sleeping, and general social matters and still hope to escape some of the obvious discrimination of separate units by making the black battalions organic elements of larger white units. The Army's scheme did not work. Schooling and specialty occupations aside, segregation quite obviously remained the essential fact of military life and social intercourse for the majority of black soldiers, and all the evidence of reasonable and genuine reform that came about under the Gillem Board policy went aglimmering. The Army was in for some rough years with its critics.
But why were the Army's senior officers, experienced leaders at the pinnacle of their careers and dedicated to the well-being of the institution they served, so reluctant to part with segregation? Why did they cling to an institution abandoned by the Navy and the Air Force,[8-64] the target of the civil rights movement and its allies in Congress, and by any reasonable judgment so costly in terms of efficient organization? The answers lie in the reasoned defense of their position developed by these men during the long controversy over the use of black troops and so often presented in public statements and documents.[8-65] Arguments for continued segregation fell into four general categories.
[Footnote 8-64: The Air Force became a separate service on 18 September 1947.]
[Footnote 8-65: Unless otherwise noted, the following paragraphs are based on Nichols' interviews in 1953 with Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Lee and with Lt. Col. Steve Davis (a black officer assigned to the P&A Division during the Gillem Board period); author's interview with General Wade H. Haislip, 18 Mar 71, and with General J. Lawton Collins, 27 Apr 71; all in CMH files; and U.S. Congress, Senate, Hearings Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, Universal Military Training, 80th Cong., 2d sess., 1948, pp. 995-96. See also Morris Janowitz, The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (New York: Free Press, 1960), pp. 87ff.]
First, segregation was necessary to preserve the internal stability of the Army. Prejudice was a condition of American society, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower told a Senate committee in 1948, and the Army "is merely one of the mirrors that holds up to our faces the United States of America." Since society separated the races, it followed that if the Army allowed black and white soldiers to live and socialize together it ran the very real risk of riots and racial disturbances which could disrupt its vital functions. Remembering the contribution of black platoons to the war in Europe, General Eisenhower, for his part, was willing to accept the risk and integrate the races by platoons, believing that the social problems "can be handled," particularly on the large posts. Nevertheless he made no move toward integrating by platoons while he was Chief of Staff. Later he explained that
the possibility of applying this lesson [World War II integration of Negro platoons] to the peacetime Army came up again and again. Objection involved primarily the social side of the soldier's life. It was argued that through integration we would get into all kinds of difficulty in staging soldiers' dances and other social events. At that time we were primarily occupied in responding to America's determination "to get the soldiers home"--so, as I recall, little progress toward integration was made during that period.[8-66]
[Footnote 8-66: Ltr, DDE to Gen Bruce Clarke (commander of the 2d Constabulary Brigade when it was integrated in 1950), 29 May 67, copy in CMH.]
"Liquor and women," Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee pronounced, were the (p. 228) major ingredients of racial turmoil in the Army. Although General Lee had been a prime mover in the wartime integration of combat platoons, he wanted the Army to avoid social integration because of the disturbances he believed would attend it. As General Omar N. Bradley saw it, the Army could integrate its training programs but not the soldier's social life. Hope of progress would be destroyed if integration was pushed too fast. Bradley summed up his postwar attitude very simply: "I said let's go easy--as fast as we can."
Second, segregation was an efficient way to isolate the poorly educated and undertrained black soldier, especially one with a combat occupational specialty. To integrate Negroes into white combat units, already dangerously understrength, would threaten the Army's fighting ability. When he was Chief of Staff, Eisenhower thought many of the problems associated with black soldiers, problems of morale, health, and discipline, were problems of education, and that the Negro was capable of change. "I believe," he said, "that a Negro can improve his standing and his social standing and his respect for certain of the standards that we observe, just as well as we can." Lt. Gen. Wade H. Haislip, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Administration, concluded that the Army's racial mission was education. All that Circular 124 meant, he explained, "was that we had to begin educating the Negro soldiers so they could be mixed sometime in the future." Bradley observed in agreement that "as you begin to get better educated Negroes in the service," there is "more reason to integrate." The Army was pledged to accept Negroes and to give them a wide choice of assignment, but until their education and training improved they had to be isolated.
Third, segregation was the only way to provide equal treatment and opportunity for black troops. Defending this paternalistic argument, Eisenhower told the Senate:
In general, the Negro is less well educated ... and if you make a complete amalgamation, what you are going to have is in every company the Negro is going to be relegated to the minor jobs, and he is never going to get his promotion to such grades as technical sergeant, master sergeant, and so on, because the competition is too tough. If, on the other hand, he is in (p. 229) smaller units of his own, he can go up to that rate, and I believe he is entitled to the chance to show his own wares.
Fourth, segregation was necessary because segments of American society with powerful representatives in Congress were violently opposed to mixing the races. Bradley explained that integration was part of social evolution, and he was afraid that the Army might move too fast for certain sections of the country. "I thought in 1948 that they were ready in the North," he added, "but not in the South." The south "learned over the years that mixing the races was a vast problem." Bradley continued, "so any change in the Army would be a big step in the South." General Haislip reasoned, you "just can't do it all of a sudden." As for the influence of those opposed to maintaining the Army's social status quo, Haislip, who was the Vice Chief of Staff during part of the Gillem Board period, recalled that "everybody was floundering around, trying to find the right thing to do. I didn't lose any sleep over it [charges of discrimination]." General Eisenhower, as he did so often during his career, accurately distilled the thinking of his associates:
I believe that the human race may finally grow up to the point where it [race relations] will not be a problem. It [the race problem] will disappear through education, through mutual respect, and so on. But I do believe that if we attempt merely by passing a lot of laws to force someone to like someone else, we are just going to get into trouble. On the other hand, I do not by any means hold out for this extreme segregation as I said when I first joined the Army 38 years ago.
These arguments might be specious, as a White House committee would later demonstrate, but they were not necessarily guileful, for they were the heartfelt opinions of many of the Army's leaders, opinions shared by officials of the other services. These men were probably blind to the racism implicit in their policies, a racism nurtured by military tradition. Education and environment had fostered in these career officers a reverence for tradition. Why should the Army, these traditionalists might ask, abandon its black units, some with histories stretching back almost a century? Why should the ordered social life of the Army post, for so long a mirror of the segregated society of most civilian communities, be so uncomfortably changed? The fact that integration had never really been tried before made it fraught with peril, and all the forces of military tradition conspired to support the old ways.
What had gone unnoticed by Army planners was the subtle change in the attitude of the white enlisted man toward integration. Opinion surveys were rare in an institution dedicated to the concept of military discipline, but nevertheless in the five years following the war several surveys were made of the racial views of white troops (the views of black soldiers were ignored, probably on the assumption that all Negroes favored integration). In 1946, just as the Gillem Board policy was being enunciated, the Army staff found enlisted men in substantial agreement on segregation. Although most of those surveyed supported the expanded use of Negroes in the Army, an overwhelming majority voted for the principle of having racially separate working and living arrangements. Yet the pollsters found much less opposition to integration when they put their questions on a personal basis--"How do you feel about...?" Only southerners as a group registered a clear majority for segregated working conditions. The survey also (p. 230) revealed another encouraging portent: most of the opposition to integration existed among older and less educated men.[8-67]
[Footnote 8-67: The 1946 survey is contained in CINFO, "Supplementary Rpt on Attitudes of Whites Toward Serving With Negro EM," Incl to Memo, Col Charles S. Johnson, Exec Off, CofS, for DCofS, 24 May 49, sub: Segregation in the Army, CSUSA 291.2 Negroes (24 May 48).]
Three years later the Secretary of Defense sponsored another survey of enlisted opinion on segregation. This time less than a third of those questioned were opposed to integrated working conditions and some 40 percent were not "definitely opposed" to complete integration of both working and living arrangements. Again men from all areas tended to endorse integration as their educational level rose; opposition, on the other hand, centered in 1949 among the chronic complainers and those who had never worked with Negroes.[8-68]
[Footnote 8-68: Armed Forces I&E Div, OSD, Rpt No. 101, "Morale Attitudes of Enlisted Men, May-June 1949," pt. II, Attitude Toward Integration of Negro Soldiers in the Army, copy in CMH.]
In discussing prejudice and discrimination it is necessary to compare the Army with the rest of American society. Examining the question of race relations in the Army runs the risk of distorting the importance given the subject by the nation as a whole in the postwar period. While resistance to segregation was undoubtedly growing in the black community and among an increasing number of progressives in the white community, there was as yet no widespread awareness of the problem and certainly no concerted public effort to end it. This lack of perception might be particularly justified in the case of Army officers, for few of them had any experience with black soldiers and most undoubtedly were not given to wide reading and reflecting on the subject of race relations. Moreover, the realities of military life tended to insulate Army officers from the main currents of American society. Frequently transferred and therefore without roots in the civilian community, isolated for years at a time in overseas assignments, their social life often centered in the military garrison, officers might well have been less aware of racial discrimination.
Perhaps because of the insulation imposed on officers by their duties, the Army's leaders were achieving reforms far beyond those accepted elsewhere in American society. Few national organizations and industries could match the Army in 1948 for the number of Negroes employed, the breadth of responsibility given them, and the variety of their training and occupations. Looked at in this light, the (p. 231) Army of 1948 and the men who led it could with considerable justification be classed as a progressive force in the fight for racial justice.
Segregation: An Assessment
The gap between the Army's stated goal of integration and its continuing practices had grown so noticeable in 1948, a presidential election year, that most civil rights spokesmen and their allies in the press had become disillusioned with Army reforms. Benjamin O. Davis, still the Army's senior black officer and still after eight years a brigadier general, called the Army staff's attention to the shift in attitude. Most had greeted publication of Circular 124 as "the dawn of a new day for the colored soldier"--General Davis's words--and looked forward to the gradual eradication of segregation. But Army practices in subsequent months had brought disappointment, he warned the under secretary, and the black press had become "restless and impatient." He wanted the Army staff to give "definite expression of the desire of the Department of National Defense for the elimination of all forms of discrimination-segregation from the Armed Services."[8-69] The suggestion was disapproved. General Paul explained that the Army could not make such a policy statement since Circular 124 permitted segregated units and a quota that by its nature discriminated at least in terms of numbers of Negroes assigned.[8-70]
[Footnote 8-69: Memo, Brig Gen B. O. Davis, Sp Asst to SA, for Under SA, 7 Jan 48, sub: Negro Utilization in the Postwar Army, WDGPA 291-2; ibid., 24 Nov 47; both in SA files. The quotations are from the latter document.]
[Footnote 8-70: Memo, D/P&A for Under SA, 29 Apr 48, sub: Negro Utilization in the Postwar Army, WDGPA 291.2.]
In February 1948 the Chief of Information tried to counter criticism by asking personnel and administrative officials to collect favorable opinions from prominent civilians, "particularly Negroes and sociologists." But this antidote to public criticism failed because, as the deputy personnel director had to admit, "the Division does not have knowledge of any expressed favorable opinion either of individuals or organizations, reference our Negro policy."[8-71]
[Footnote 8-71: DF's, CINFO to D/P&A, 9 Feb 48, and Dep D/P&A to CINFO, 12 Feb 48; both in WDGPA 291.2 (9 Feb 48).]
A constant concern because it marred the Army's public image, segregation also had a profound effect on the performance and well-being of the black soldier. This effect was difficult to measure but nevertheless real and has been the subject of considerable study by social scientists.[8-72] Their opinions are obviously open to debate, and in fact most of them were not fully formulated during the period under discussion. Yet their conclusions, based on modern sociological techniques, clearly reveal the pain and turmoil suffered by black soldiers because of racial separation. Rarely did the Army staff bother to delve into these matters in the years before Korea, (p. 232) although the facts on which the scientists based their conclusions were collected by the War Department itself. This indifference is the more curious because the Army had always been aware of what the War Department Policies and Programs Review Board called in 1947 "that intangible aspect of military life called prestige and spirit."[8-73]
[Footnote 8-72: For a detailed discussion of this point, see Mandelbaum, Soldier Groups and Negro Soldiers; Stouffer et al., The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life, ch. XII; Eli Ginzberg, The Negro Potential (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956); Ginzberg et al., The Ineffective Soldier, vol. III, Patterns of Performance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1959); To Secure These Rights: The Report of the President's Committee on Civil Rights (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1947); Dollard and Young, "In the Armed Forces."]
[Footnote 8-73: Final Rpt, WD Policies and Programs Review Board, 11 Aug 47, CSUSA files.]
Burdened with the task of shoring up its racial policy, the Army staff failed to concern itself with the effect of segregation. Yet by ignoring segregation the staff overlooked the primary cause of its racial problems and condemned the Army to their continuation. It need not have been, because as originally conceived, the Gillem Board policy provided, in the words of the Assistant Secretary of War, for "progressive experimentation" leading to "effective manpower utilization without regard to race or color."[8-74] This reasonable approach to a complex social issue was recognized as such by the War Department and by many black spokesmen. But the Gillem Board's original goal was soon abandoned, and in the "interest of National Defense," according to Secretary Royall, integration was postponed for the indefinite future.[8-75] Extension of individual integration below the company level was forbidden, and the lessons learned at the Kitzingen Training Center were never applied elsewhere; in short, progressive experimentation was abandoned.
[Footnote 8-74: Ltr, Howard C. Petersen, ASW, to William M. Taylor, 12 May 47, ASW 291.2.]
[Footnote 8-75: Department of National Defense, "National Defense Conference on Negro Affairs," 26 Apr 48, morning session, p. 24.]
The Gillem Board era began with Secretary Patterson accepting the theory of racially separate but equal service as an anodyne for temporary segregation; it ended with Secretary Royall embracing a permanent separate but equal system as a shield to protect the racial status quo. While Patterson and his assistants accepted restriction on the number of Negroes and their assignment to segregated jobs and facilities as a temporary expedient, military subordinates used the Gillem Board's reforms as a way to make more efficient a segregation policy that neither they nor, they believed, society in general was willing to change. Thus, despite some real progress on the periphery of its racial problem, the Army would have to face the enemy in Korea with an inefficient organization of its men.
The Army's postwar policy was based on a false premise. The Gillem Board decided that since Negroes had fought poorly in segregated divisions in two world wars, they might fight better in smaller segregated organizations within larger white units. Few officers really believed this, for it was commonly accepted throughout the Army that Negroes generally made poor combat soldiers. It followed then that the size of a unit was immaterial, and indeed, given the manpower that the Army received from reenlistments and Selective Service, any black unit, no matter its size, would almost assuredly be an inefficient, spiritless group of predominately Class IV and V men. For in addition to its educational limitations, the typical black unit suffered a further handicap in the vital matter of motivation. The Gillem Board disregarded this fact, but it was rarely overlooked by the black soldier: he was called upon to serve as a second-class (p. 233) soldier to defend what he often regarded as his second-class citizenship. In place of unsatisfactory black divisions, Circular 124 made the Army substitute three unsatisfactorily mixed divisions whose black elements were of questionable efficiency and a focus of complaint among civil rights advocates. Commanders at all levels faced a dilemma implicit in the existence of white and black armies side by side. Overwhelmed by regulations and policies that tried to preserve the fiction of separate but equal opportunity, these officers wasted their time and energy and, most often in the case of black officers, lost their self-confidence.
In calling for the integration of small black units rather than individuals, the Gillem Board obviously had in mind the remarkably effective black platoons in Europe in the last months of World War II. But even this type of organization was impossible in the postwar Army because it demanded a degree of integration that key commanders, especially the major Army component commanders, were unwilling to accept.
These real problems were intensified by the normal human failings of prejudice, vested interest, well-meaning ignorance, conditioned upbringing, shortsightedness, preoccupation with other matters, and simple reluctance to change. The old ways were comfortable, and the new untried, frightening in their implications and demanding special effort. Nowhere was there enthusiasm for the positive measures needed to implement the Gillem Board's recommendations leading to integration. This unwillingness to act positively was particularly noticeable in the Organization and Training Division, in the Army Ground Forces, and even to some extent in the Personnel and Administration Division itself.
The situation might have improved had the Gillem Board been able or willing to spell out intermediate goals. For the ultimate objective of using black soldiers like white soldiers as individuals was inconceivable and meaningless or radical and frightening to many in the Army. Interim goals might have provided impetus for gradual change and precluded the virtual inertia that gripped the Army staff. But at best Circular 124 served as a stopgap measure, allowing the Army to postpone for a few more years any substantial change in race policy. This postponement cost the service untold time and effort devising and defending a system increasingly under attack from the black community and, significantly, from that community's growing allies in the administration.